


Blackmail Favors

by Thorny



Series: Blackmail can lead to Liking, and Liking can lead to Love... [1]
Category: LazyTown
Genre: Attempts made at Episode-appropriate banter, Blackmail, Elf Sportacus (LazyTown), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Relationships, M/M, Slow Burn, Stephanie is a perceptive little shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-02-07 11:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 38,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18619408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thorny/pseuds/Thorny
Summary: Robbie finds out Sportacus is actually an elf.  What does he do?  Blackmail the hero, of course!  But is his heart really up for it?





	1. And so it Begins

**Author's Note:**

> I know I've very late to this fandom... my niece started watching it on YouTube and I'd heard good things about the show, so I sat and watched the first, like, 5 episodes with her all in one sitting. And then I perused AO3 for some of that sweet, adorable (and sometimes a little one-sided) Robbie/Sportacus. And then I watched all the way through season 2...
> 
> And now here I am, making an account after lurking since AO3 was in its infancy... to post a probably trash fic of my own.
> 
> Enjoy! Or don't. I'm mostly posting it because I never post anything I've ever written... but I'm really excited to see where this headcannon takes me.

Robbie Rotten gleefully circled around his contraption-of-the-week to gloat at his flippity floppity captive. The plan had gone nearly perfectly. The brats had been lured away. Sportadumb had fallen for the disguise and the ruse, and currently hung by his ankles from a bola suspended on a hook.  
“Well, Sportakook! Looks like you’re haaaan - ”  
This was… not expected. Robbie blinked. Sportacus wriggled against the bola, but was mostly focused on the wide-eyed villain with an upside down raised brow.  
“Is...there something on my face?”  
“..Other than your ridiculous moustache? No.”  
“In my teeth?” Sportacus helpfully bared said teeth, gesturing vaguely with a hanging hand. Robbie shook his head.  
“You… your ears. You really are an annoying elf!” The villain finally managed to articulate with an accusatory finger. Sportacus’ eyes widened and his hands flew to his head, feeling his bare, slightly curly hair and his bare, pointed ears. He snapped his gaze down to the grass to see his ever-present hat and goggles innocently settled amongst the dried leaves.  
“...Robbie, would you - could you p-please hand me my hat?” Sportacus stuttered, covering the sides of his head with cupped hands. Blue eyes darted in the direction of the approaching children’s excited voices. Robbie Rotten crossed his lanky arms over his chest with a slow, nefarious grin.  
“I don’t know, Sportadork, this could be my big chance.”  
“Robbie, _please_.”  
“I bet you’d have to leave town if everyone found out.” Robbie buffed his nails against his vest, checking them absently with a soft whistle of nonchalance. From the corner of his eye, he watched Sportacus struggle to say something as the children’s voices got louder. They would round Robbie’s trap machine any minute.  
“...Robbie, I will do _anything_ you want, short of leaving town, if you give me my hat _right now_.”

Well, this was an interesting turn. To be perfectly honest, Robbie hadn’t actually wanted to run the flippity floppity sports fanatic out of town for awhile now. Sure, in the beginning it had been more or less his only goal (aside from making the brats stay inside and eat sweets). He would never, ever, _ever_ admit it out loud, but the schemes and the plots and the disguises were… fun, so long as he wasn’t suffering from a bout of insomnia.  
This whole rigmarole had given the man so many ideas to work with. He would almost thank Sportacus for showing up and giving Robbie a ‘nemesis’ to his genius. But he wouldn’t. Not to the elf’s flippity floppity face.

“Ooh, that’s a tempting offer, Sportaloon, what’s in it for me?” Robbie was already reaching for the striped headwear regardless, he just wanted to rub it in just a little more.  
“...I don’t want to leave Lazytown,” Sportacus almost whispered, eyes slipped closed so the stocky blonde didn’t see the villain scoop the hat off the grass and flick off a stray leaf.  
“You owe me,” Robbie hissed, thrusting the hat against Sportacus’ fingers as the elf’s eyes snapped open, searching. The dark haired villain refused to meet his gaze.

The rest, of course, followed as per usual. Sportacus fell back into his hero role (with his hat securely on this time), admonishing Robbie while the kids giggled and gasped and of course that techie kid Puddle-or-whatever managed to find the release button on the trap. There was some heroic speech that Robbie barely paid attention to, a chorus of tiny voices saying his name in that tone, and the villain scuttling off back to his lair while they did some damnable song and dance.

After dropping his disguise in a pile on the floor, Robbie tucked the blueprint for the bola trap safely aside - it had worked quite well after all - and set about cleaning up. He had left his workbenches and tools strewn all over as soon as he had finished the device earlier in the day.  
Robbie was even in a good mood as he sorted his things. His invention had gone swimmingly, even if his captive had eventually escaped. He still counted it a win if the thing didn’t backfire. Not only that, but now he had some amazing blackmail to hold over his nemesis.  
“I should have made Sportadork shake on it,” Robbie lamented to a screw as he tucked it into a drawer, “But he’s such a _good guy_ I’m sure he won’t forget…”

The dark haired man was interrupted by an almost tentative knock against his hatch. Snapping his gaze to a nearby timepiece revealed it to be 7:35 pm. Robbie stood from his hunched state, groaning as his spine creaked back to alignment, and padded up to his periscope. A fidgeting blue-clad hero halfway up the ladder to the hatch greeted his view. The villain smirked.  
“What, Sportaflop? Isn’t it almost your bedtime?” Robbie sneered through the speaker. The elf flinched.  
“No, not for another half hour. Robbie, can I talk to you?”  
“We are talking, doofus.”  
“I meant - Robbie, can I come down? I don’t want to have this conversation out here… please.”

Robbie was tempted to deny the hero entry, make Sportacus squirm, but he rationalized that there was time for that later. And if he was here to talk, there was a good chance this was going to be about… earlier. 

“Alright, _fiiine_ , hold on,” Robbie snapped the periscope up and strode to the lever by the ladder to his hatch, hoisting up. There was a harsh clank and a click. The lanky man slipped over to his big fluffy orange chair, perching on the edge with his elbows on the chair’s arms and his fingers steepled in front of his nose.  
Sportacus slid down the tunnel and stuck the landing with an unnecessary flip, coming to a stop in front of the villain.  
“Sooo,” Robbie started with a quirked grin, enjoying the blue elf’s fidgety nervousness.  
“You can’t - well, technically, you can but I would really rather you didn’t tell anyone that I’m…”  
“An elf?”  
“That, yeah,” Sportacus worried his lip, not quite meeting Robbie’s eye.  
“Sportafool, did you forget that I’m the villain? I do the exact opposite of what you want. Constantly,” Robbie thoroughly enjoyed the put-upon sigh escaping the hero at that, waving his delicate fingers vaguely, “I’m going to need some incentive to not spill the beans.”  
“Name it,” Sportacus prompted, finally meeting Robbie’s amused gaze.  
“I don’t know if it can be one thing. I mean, you want me to keep this a secret for a pretty long time, don’t you?”  
Sportacus was really making this too easy. The kicked puppy look combined with the downturned pencil thin moustache would have broken a lesser man.  
“Oh alright, let me think,” Robbie finally relented after a tense moment. He leaned back in his chair and overtly gestured to tap a finger against his chin. Sportacus waited fairly patiently if Robbie were to be honest. In fact, he hadn’t done a single flip or flop since his entrance. No time to ponder that now. Think, Robbie, _think_!  
“Weekly.”  
“What?” Sportacus spluttered, brow raising in blatant question. Robbie pointed at the other male then held up said finger with a smirk.  
“I want you to do me a favor once a week. Daily is too often, I think I’d faint from dealing with so much flipping and flopping from you.”  
Sportacus crossed his arms over his chest, blue eyes searching Robbie’s face before he tentatively responded, “...What kind of favors?”  
“Don’t get your hero-pants in a twist, Sport,” The villain snorted, rolling his eyes, “They won’t be villainous - probably.”  
“Robbie…”  
“Ok, maybe a little villainous,” Robbie pinched two fingers together, squinting his eyes to emphasize the miniscule amount of possibly un-heroic things he might ask for. Sportacus let out a pained sigh through his nose, doing a great impression of someone who just bit into a sour apple.  
“Ah, don’t get huffy now, Sportakluz. With all your back flipping and cavorting it's a wonder you’ve managed to last this long without you revealing your little secret.”  
Oh, that was an interesting color the elf was turning. Robbie’s grin grew as Sportacus shifted on his feet, looking anywhere else.  
“Of _course_ you’ve lost it before! I guess your luck just ran out, eh, Sportaloser?”  
Sportacus muttered something under his breath that Robbie didn’t quite catch, but the villain didn’t care. He was too busy gloating. When the lanky man caught the antsy elf tapping his fingers against his bicep, Robbie relented, schooling his face back to something passably amicable.  
“Now let’s see, we haven’t got a lot of time before all good little elves should be tucked in for beddie-bye. So, why don’t you bugger off and come back tomorrow while I think of a suitable favor, hm? And don’t show up before noon! I swear, you and the brats get up far too early.”  
Sportacus looked like he was fighting between frowning at the insult and smiling knowingly at Robbie’s sleeping habits. He settled for something in between before giving the dark haired man a slow nod.  
“Ok, Robbie. I’ll come back after lunch tomorrow.”  
“See that you do,” the villain dismissed with a wave of his hand toward the chute. The blue-clad hero visibly twitched like he really wanted to backflip out of Robbie’s lair, but managed to force himself to _walk_ like a _normal person_ to the chute, letting himself out with a clang as the hatch dropped closed. Robbie snickered to himself, gleefully rubbing his palms together as he schemed. Though, there was one small problem he would need to correct first...

Sportacus slid back against the short ladder, sitting down heavily on a rung as he rubbed his face with both hands. Of everyone in Lazytown that his hat could have fallen off in front of, it had to be Robbie. He looked up at the darkening sky through his fingers and sighed. Hopefully, if he had any luck left, Robbie’s ‘favors’ wouldn’t be too big of a deal.  
“Ladder,” He managed, his tone exhausted. His airship dutifully dropped said rope ladder a few feet away and Sportacus dragged himself up. Settling heavily on the edge of his bed, the elf pulled off his headgear to swipe his thumb under the loose and fraying hem of his prized hat. He supposed it was bound to happen eventually.


	2. The First Week

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robbie decides to make sure no one else can take his blackmail material away. At least, that's what he keeps telling himself.

Sportacus spent the first half of the next day distracting himself. Most of the kids didn’t notice that his smiles didn’t quite reach his eyes while they played in the park, but Stephanie shot him a few concerned glances.  
“I just didn’t sleep well, that’s all,” Sportacus told the pink-haired girl between games. It wasn’t entirely a fib - he hadn’t slept well, but Stephanie didn’t need to know why. She took it at face value, though, wished him well and bounded off to join in the soccer game. The slightly-above-average hero carefully tightened the strap of his goggles before rejoining the game himself.

Noon came too soon. The kids wandered off one by one to go eat lunch until Sportacus was alone in the park, absently bouncing the soccer ball on his thigh. He finally sighed, tucking the ball under his arm and vaulting over the low wall to put it away for later. The elf glanced in the vague direction of Robbie’s lair, dreading the inevitable conversation he was going to have to have with the villain, but he supposed he’d dawdled enough. He took out his nervous energy as backflips all the way to the edge of town, springboarding off a bench to land on his feet once he was close to the billboard.  
“I could just hide on my airship,” Sportacus muttered to himself, “...but then Robbie would tell everyone.”  
He definitely wouldn’t put it past the town villain to do just that if the hero failed to hold up his end of this uneven bargain. And then he would look like a coward and get run out of Lazytown. No, best just to get this over with.  
Sportacus trudged up to the hatch, raising a hand to rap his knuckles on the metal when he spotted a folded note tied to the top of the ladder. He flicked the paper open to read, ‘ _It’s unlocked, don’t bother knocking_ ’ in an elegant script. The elf shook his head with a slight smile and followed instructions, jumping down the chute.

Robbie wasn’t immediately in the main area of his lair when Sportacus rolled in and front flipped into a landing on the cold metal floor. Giving the space a cursory glance, the hero spotted several boxes of random metal bits and bobs strewn about; more than usual, anyways. He was about to call out for the villain when his hat was suddenly whipped off his head.  
“You’re late,” Robbie sneered, plopping Sportacus’ goggles back into his startled hands as the lanky man stalked off with the elf’s hat. Sportacus spluttered for a moment before he realized Robbie was inspecting the noticeably frayed hem of said hat.  
“...You didn’t set a real time, you said after noon. It’s after noon,” the elf muttered defiantly. Robbie chuckled.  
“Fair enough. So is this shoddy patchwork to blame for your wardrobe malfunction?”  
“...It’s not shoddy, it’s just old.”  
“You only have _one_ hat?” Robbie looked up, incredulous. Sportacus shrugged and nodded. The villain nearly fell backwards from the massive eye rolling he graced the hero with.  
“Of course. I suppose you only have one set of clothes too, hm?”  
Sportacus was feeling very attacked right now. Wasn’t Robbie supposed to be asking him to do a favor, or something? He huffed and crossed his arms over his chest.  
“Well, I only have one vest, but I have extras of the rest of my clothes!” he shot back, trying very hard not to channel one of the children and stick his tongue out at the other male. Robbie snorted.  
“Heroes, a hopeless lot. Alright, I guess I have my work cut out for me,” the villain pulled a lever in the wall, bringing down a long metal counter with a hiss. From the center popped out a sewing machine that looked suspiciously like Robbie either made significant modifications or built the thing from scratch. Sportacus was having a little trouble following.  
“Are you - ?”  
“If you lose it again, how am I supposed to keep sole rights to your blackmail?” Robbie interrupted, pulling out a small stool to settle in front of his machine. “Honestly,” the villain added in a huff, jerking open a slightly misshapen drawer full of different colored threads and small tools.  
Sportacus felt his lip twitch into a quirked smile. Trust Robbie to make fixing his hat sound like a villainous endeavor. He felt oddly naked without his ears covered, but thankfully Robbie’s back was to him as the man pulled out a small pair of scissors and set to freeing the old frayed and broken thread out.  
“Wasn’t I supposed to being doing _you_ a favor?” The elf abruptly broke the quiet, brow furrowed.  
“Oh, right. Well,” Robbie snapped up, leveling Sportacus with a glare before pointing at one of the boxes of scrap nearby, “Make yourself useful and put all of those by my workbench. And don’t interrupt me again unless you want a crooked stitch!”  
Sportacus dutifully set to work hauling the heavy boxes, wondering how Robbie dragged these things around by himself. More than once a sharp piece of scrap dug into his palm from a hole in the cardboard, making the elf wince. At some point during his task, he heard the sewing machine start up with an angry hiss and a muttered curse from Robbie. His crystal didn’t flash and he didn’t hear any pained noises, so Sportacus assumed things were going as smoothly as they usually do. 

As the elf set down the last box, he wiped his hands and turned back to see what Robbie was doing. Hunched over his machine, the villain had Sportacus’ hat turned inside out and pinned properly as he guided the thread and needle around. Sportacus glanced around the room, spotting a clock happily displaying 3:47 pm. The hero stretched absently, trying to adhere to Robbie’s earlier warning about interrupting him and keeping the stretches simple and quiet. However, the hum and hiss of Robbie’s machines were rudely interrupted by Sportacus’ crystal pinging loudly.  
“Someone’s in trouble,” the elf automatically murmured, starting toward the chute. Robbie let out a loud tut, stopping Sportacus in his tracks.  
“And just where are you going without a _hat_?” The villain scoffed, brow raised as he spared the other male a look. Sportacus started to stutter out a reply, but Robbie threw up a hand and stood, stopping the sewing machine. The lanky man grumbled under his breath as he stalked over to his Disguise Machine, sharply pressed a few chords on the keys, and pulled a huge lever before stepping out of the way for a metal tray to shoot free of the machine. Sportacus blinked as Robbie picked up the hat from his ill-fated attempt to disguise himself as another Sportacus, tossing the fairly accurate recreation to the elf.  
“Go,” Robbie groused, shooing Sportacus with both hands and a sneer.  
Sportacus swallowed his thanks, knowing the villain would have snapped if he even tried, and tugged on the headgear before bounding up the chute. Robbie crossed his arms and huffed, glaring at his steaming machine.  
“What? Don’t judge me,” He hissed at the contraption, raising a finger pointedly, “I have to bide my time! I’m going to get a lot more favors out of Sportaflop before I reveal his flippity floppity elf-i-ness!”

Sportacus spring boarded out of Robbie’s lair, letting the hatch clang shut as he bounded off. His crystal was still going off and he cartwheeled in the direction it was pulling him, trying not to analyze the last few hours he’d just spent helping Robbie and the villain doing the same.  
“Help!” cried a small voice, revealing Ziggy struggling to hold onto a branch high up in the park tree. Trixie and Stephanie were below trying to talk the candy-loving kid down, but he shook his head.  
“It’s t-t-too far down!”  
“I’ll catch you, Ziggy!” Sportacus called as he backflipped over the low wall and into the park, smiling encouragingly. The girls cheered. Ziggy visibly looked relieved as the hero held out his arms below the tree branch. He finally worked up enough courage to let go of the branch, landing with a whomp in Sportacus’ grip.  
“Are you alright?” Sportacus set the boy down on his feet, patting his head to help him calm down, “What were you doing all the way up there?”  
Trixie piped up at that while Ziggy sniffled. “Well, first we were trying to draw this biiiiiiig monster on the ground, but we couldn’t see the whole thing even if we stood on the see-saw or the top of the slide!”  
“So Ziggy climbed the tree to get a bird’s eye view, but he slipped,” Stephanie finished, looking scolded despite no one blaming her. Sportacus leveled them all with his Hero Look as he knelt down to Ziggy’s level.  
“Climbing can be fun, but make sure you use a ladder or call for me next time, ok?”  
A chorus of ‘ok’s’ responded and Sportacus broke into a wide smile.  
“Now, why don’t you show me this monster? Slightly-above-average heroes need to keep on their toes!”  
The kids giggled and took the elf’s hands to playfully drag him over to their massive chalk drawing.

Robbie snapped the periscope back up with a huff, stalking back over to his sewing machine to finish what he’d started on Sportacus’ old hat. He’d been morbidly curious as to what had set the bounding fool’s crystal off, and rolled his eyes.  
“Pah! Stuck in a tree. Hasn’t Sportakook told them time and again not to do that without him around?” Robbie immediately tamped down his own memory of getting stuck up trees, doing exactly what the kids had, and needing his own rescue. He sniffed, wrinkling his nose at his own traitorous thoughts. The villain settled back onto his stool, returning to his set appointed task. Absently, he started humming as he worked.

Stephanie was very grateful Sportacus looked to be feeling much better than he had that morning. After accidentally summoning him thanks to Ziggy’s almost fall and showing him their monster drawing, they ended up in a game of basketball when Pixel showed up. Sportacus’ smiles were happier and his extraordinary moves were back to normal. Though, if Stephanie were honest with herself, something wasn’t quite right about the hero’s hat. The stripes were on the wrong side from what she remembered, but Sportacus wasn’t acting like Robbie so she figured something else must be up.  
“Hey, Sportacus, I’m glad you’re feeling better!” The pink-haired girl smiled at the hero as he front flipped away from his last backward-facing dunk. He grinned back, coming to a stop beside her.  
“Was it that noticeable?” The blue-clad male asked in a stage whisper, knowing Ziggy and Pixel were distracted with trying to dribble and steal the ball respectively. Stephanie leaned in.  
“Yeah, but it's ok!” She assured, patting his arm. “Though, I did have a question.”  
“Shoot,” Sportacus chuckled, curious.  
“Why’s your hat got funny stripes?”  
Sportacus paused. Right, Robbie’s recreation had been the exact opposite of his own. He debated briefly, but settled on the truth. He couldn’t stand lying to the kids.  
“...I’m borrowing this one from Robbie,” He answered as neutrally as possible. Stephanie blinked.  
“So that _is_ Robbie’s fake hat,” She murmured mostly to herself, but the hero overheard, “What happened to your real one?”  
“Well, it got a rip, so… Robbie offered to fix it for me,” It still sounded really strange out loud, but it was mostly the truth. Stephanie gave him a deadpan look.  
“Robbie Rotten is fixing your hat.”  
Sportacus nodded.  
“You’re not...aren’t you worried he’s going to do something… villainous?”  
Sportacus snorted. He couldn’t completely assure her without revealing why the town advocate of laziness was doing anything remotely nice, but he did need to say something.  
“I’m going to trust him, even though he’s not nice most of the time,” Sportacus started, figuring he could turn this around a little bit and make it less of a lie of omission, “Because even though he’s a villain, I still want to try to be friends.”  
Stephanie scrunched up her face in that adorable kid fashion while puzzling the confusing statement. Sportacus waited patiently.  
“...Because everybody needs friends. Even Robbie,” She finally relented with a sigh.  
“Exactly,” Sportacus smiled back. The hero briefly wondered if he could turn this little blackmail situation around...

Robbie tossed his completed repair job onto the counter, turning off his sewing machine with a yawn and a stretch. His back gave a loud crack in response. He glared in the direction of the clock to see it was nearly 8 already. Just as the lanky man wondered where Sportacus had flounced off to, he heard the creak and clank of his hatch opening.  
“Cutting it close, Sport,” Robbie teased with a sneer as the elf rolled into the lair, springing up to land on his feet with an entirely unnecessary flip.  
“Sorry, the kids really wanted to play basketball,” Sportacus apologized, straightening up from his landing. Robbie rolled his eyes, but relented, scooping up the finished project. He thrust it at Sportacus without making eye contact.  
“Fine, whatever. Here, its done. Now, give me mine back.”  
The hero gratefully traded Robbie’s fake for the repaired one, testing the new hem for himself with a pleased smile. Robbie refused to acknowledge the feeling bubbling in his cold heart from having put that smile there.  
“I know you don’t like to be nice, but thank you anyway,” Sportacus’ gratitude made the villain roll his eyes harder and stalk off to his kitchen.  
“I’m not doing it to be _nice_ , I’m doing it for - “  
“The blackmail, I know,” Sportacus finished, shrugging, “Speaking of, did I finish your favor?”  
“My what?” Robbie started, head halfway in his fridge as he rooted around for some dinner he didn’t have to work to prepare. He jerked up, glaring around his lair to finally notice that all of his scrap boxes were neatly piled by his workbench, just as he’d ordered earlier. “Oh. OH! Yes, that. Uh, sure, sure. Off you go, then. Until next week, of course. Don’t forget!”  
“I won’t Robbie,” Sportacus assured as he slipped his hat back on, tucking his ears securely and strapping on his goggles.  
“Good, now, shoo or I’ll make you watch me eat this entire piece of cake,” Robbie half-threatened, pulling out an obscenely huge slice of red velvet cake with white frosting and a fork. Sportacus shuddered.  
“Already gone.” The elf ducked back out the chute and off to his airship for the night.

Robbie snorted, sneering in the wake of the overactive hero’s exit as the villain made his way to his favorite chair, cake in hand. He really needed to think of a proper list of favors to force Sportaflip into doing for him… after dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And week #1 / favor #1 in the bag! Sort of.


	3. The Second Week

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week 2 of Robbie's blackmail. Goes about as swimmingly for him as any other of his plots.

The rest of the week passed without much incident. Robbie didn’t bother with any plots and most of the residents of Lazytown stayed out of trouble. There was one small affair involving Ms. Busybody’s missing package, but it turned out Stingy mistook it for a package he was expecting and didn’t fess up for the whole day about it. Stephanie asked after Sportacus’ hat several times, convinced Robbie had done something to it, until the hero finally managed to assure her that absolutely, positively nothing was wrong with his clothes. He would have thought the concern was endearing, except proving without a doubt sooner would involve outing himself as a fae creature and that was why he was in this mess to begin with.

Speaking of his personal mess, Sportacus mindlessly munched on an apple as he perched on top of one of the park’s low walls. It was the first day of the following week, and last the hero checked, nearly noon. The kids had just wandered off to Pixel’s house to see a new game the redhead got and Sportacus figured this was as good a time as any to visit the local villain. He hopped up, expertly tossing the apple’s core into a trash bin halfway across the park, and cartwheeled his way to the billboard just outside of town.

Robbie Rotten let his head drop onto his crossed arms with a huff. He was sprawled in front of his workbench with a dozen different blueprints and parts lists strewn around him in a clutter.  
“Why can’t I think of a single thing!” He grumbled, voice muffled. Another annoyed huff left the man as he forced himself up from his slouch, glaring down at the papers as if they personally caused this bout of invention block.  
“Too flashy,” He pushed one blueprint on shiny, reflective paper away.  
“Too splashy,” Another fell to the floor that looked like plans for a giant inflatable pool.  
“Too… slashy,” The villain pushed a third aside, frowning deeply. Usually looking at his old projects gave him a new insight; or at least let him reminisce on mostly successful past plans. His struggle was interrupted by the sound of his hatch opening and someone coming down the chute. The villain snapped up, turning just as Sportacus rolled out and leapt to his feet with a backspring and a flip. Robbie rolled his eyes.  
“It is far too early for your gymnastics, Sportaloon.”  
“I don’t know how you sleep in so late to consider noon early,” Sportacus countered, fiddling with a bracer. Robbie snorted, a smirk gracing his face.  
“Easy, I go to sleep after midnight.”  
Sportacus visibly shuddered at the thought. “Anyway, I’m here.”  
“I noticed,” Robbie turned back to his blueprints. He wasn’t really looking at the papers, but Sportacus was radiating too much nervous energy to stand looking directly at.  
“I meant - you were teasing me, weren’t you?” The elf caught on to the villain’s sarcasm. Robbie chuckled.  
“How very astute of you,” the lanky man tugged one of the blueprints free from the middle of the pile, tracing a part outline with his finger absently, “How has the fit been?”

Sportacus took a moment to figure out what Robbie was talking about. That moment was long enough for the villain to level a look at the hero, brow raised.

“Uh, good. Really good. Haven’t lost it since.” he managed, unconsciously touching his hat with a hand.  
“And I trust Pinky _finally_ let it go that I fixed it?” Robbie couldn’t help the jab. He had overheard through his periscope Stephanie asking multiple times and gleaned from the arguments that Sportacus had either hinted at or straight up told the little girl without revealing why.  
“To be perfectly fair, if you didn’t have an ulterior motive already, you probably would have!” The blue-clad hero spluttered, crossing his arms defiantly over his chest. Robbie offered up an exaggerated shrug.  
“Villain gonna villain,” He smirked. Though, a thought that had been floating around in the man’s head surfaced, and now that Sportacus was present, he couldn’t help but ask.

“Why, exactly, can’t anyone find out you’re an elf? I mean, of course it _will_ happen, once I reveal it should you fail to adhere to my whims,” Robbie covered the question with a taunt to throw off the other male. Sportacus didn’t seem to notice, he was looking away pointedly.  
“There’s a lot of tales warning about elves and fae in human history. How we’re tricky, and mean, and dangerous. There’s even a few of those very retellings in the Lazytown library. It's not untrue, for some, and they don’t help, but most aren’t and the numbered heroes… well, there are some pretty nasty stories from ones who got found out. To be perfectly honest, you’re taking it a lot better than I thought anyone would.”  
There was some heavy food for thought. Robbie blinked, absorbing that fascinating and morbid little tidbit before setting it aside to chew on when he was safely alone. For now, however…  
“Ah HA! Of course, I knew that,” The villain quickly changed the subject, “Right. My favor. What shall I have you do for me?”  
Sportacus fought the urge to shake the other man for his theatrics as Robbie hopped up, tapping his chin in an obvious gesture as he paced. That wouldn’t solve anything. He had to play the villain’s games on his terms.  
“Could have you - no, no… Maybe - hm,” Robbie paused his pacing in front of his fridge. His eyes lit up and he whirled around on Sportacus, holding up a finger in triumph.  
“I have it! You will go to the store for me.”  
“...Really? That’s all?” Sportacus quirked a brow. Robbie sneered.  
“I haven’t given you my list yet,” The villain countered, making the hero worried with the implication. Robbie relished the look on Sportacus’ face for a moment before swiping a piece of paper and a pen, jotting down a worryingly long list.   
“You better get everything, Sportafluke. And so help you if you try to replace anything with something… _healthy_ ,” Robbie warned as he handed over the list. The hero turned the paper around with concern. His concern doubled as he read down the extensive list of very unhealthy things with a furrowed brow.  
“Robbie - ”  
“Don’t even start. Favor. Go,” The villain tried to push Sportacus out of the lair, but the hero didn’t budge. The blue-clad elf let Robbie make two more futile attempts before letting out a loud sigh.  
“At least tell me you won’t eat all of this at once?” Sportacus pleaded, looking up at the taller male with those damnable puppy eyes. Robbie rolled his own and huffed, crossing his arms with a sneer. The hero snorted, fighting a smile at the man’s childish response.  
“I’ll do as I please, Sportaflop, or I’ll whip that hat off your head in the middle of town!”  
Sportacus held up his hands in mock surrender, “Alright, Robbie. I’ll be back, with your… list.”   
Just to annoy the villain - or so Robbie would claim - the sports elf backflipped up to the exit before waving goodbye and disappearing up the chute. 

Once the clanging stopped and Robbie was sure Sportacus was off to do his bidding, the villain let out a long sigh. He rubbed the bridge of his nose in irritation as he stalked up to his fuzzy orange chair and flopped gracelessly into it.   
Sending Sportacus to pick up groceries. Yes, that was the most un-heroic thing he could think of. He was supposed to be blackmailing the elf into doing proper favors! Granted, the dark haired villain had inflated the list with several horribly sugar-filled things he didn’t really need right now. And he had left off some of the more innocuous items so he would have an excuse to get out of his lair later. But still...  
“Why am I having such a hard time being mean?! He’s the hero, I’m the villain! This shouldn’t be rocket surgery!” He growled to his lair. His machines only hissed gently in response.  
“Fat lot of help you all are,” Robbie muttered. It really didn’t help that finding out the whole reason he even had the blackmail to hold over the sports fanatic was because of some children’s stories and gross misunderstandings.   
“Argh!” He shot up out of his chair and stalked back over to his pile of blueprints, determined to ignore the weird recursive thoughts and vague feelings of remorse for being a huge jerk. He was a villain, for Pete’s sake. He was _supposed_ to be a jerk. ...Right?

Sportacus paused his cartwheels to really read over Robbie’s grocery list before he got to the local store, checking that he even knew what most of it was. The hero was positive that the striped villain was purposely messing with him with some of these. He was so engrossed with puzzling over the man’s cursive that he didn’t see Ziggy and Stephanie rounding the corner of the park in front of him.  
“Oh, hey, Sportacus!” Stephanie called, smiling.  
The elf jumped, nearly dropping the paper. “O-oh! Hey Ziggy. Hey Stephanie.”  
“What’cha up to?” Ziggy asked.   
“Um,” Sportacus started, eloquently, “A-actually, I’m running an errand. To the store.”  
“What do you need to run errands for? I thought you had eeeeeverything on your airship!” Ziggy giggled, sharing a look with Stephanie.  
“Well, this isn’t for me. Its for - um… Robbie,” The hero silently cursed his own moral code as the pink-haired girl leveled him with a Look. She held out a hand and Sportacus didn’t even protest as he handed over the list. Her eyes widened as she scanned through the items.  
“Wow, and I thought Ziggy was bad,” She muttered, ignoring an indignant ‘Hey!’ from said friend. She reluctantly gave the hero back the piece of paper. She chewed on her lip for a second before turning to her walking companion.  
“Hey, why don’t you go ahead and join Stingy at the treehouse? I’m gonna help Sportacus real quick.”  
“Pfft, have fun doing grown up stuff! I’m gonna get all the best candy before you get back!” Ziggy laughed. Stephanie smiled and rolled her eyes.  
“If you can get Stingy to share!” She shot back playfully as the blonde boy bounded off. Turning back to her hero, she placed her hands on her hips and looked him dead in the eye.  
“Sportacus, is Robbie making you do stuff for him?”  
“It’s a favor,” the blue-clad elf managed; technically not lying. Stephanie leveled him with another Look, and Sportacus swore she must have met his mother at some point.   
“Ok, ok,” She finally relented, throwing up her hands dramatically, “Adults are weird!”  
Sportacus had to choke down a laugh, schooling his expression with a twitch of his moustache. She wasn’t wrong. Stephanie reached up and grabbed his hand, tugging him along without resistance.  
“Do you even know what half of that stuff is?” She asked as they walked, raising a brow. Sportacus shrugged one-armed.  
“I would have figured it out,” At another look from the girl, the hero added, “probably.”  
“Ugh, leave it to me. If this turns out to be one of Robbie’s really complicated plots, I get to say I told you so.”  
Sportacus wisely kept his mouth shut.

This. Was. Ridiculous. Robbie caught himself staring at the same corner of the same blueprint for the 12th time. He rubbed at his eyes and huffed. His mind kept wandering back to the damnable blue kangaroo and that damnable look on his face when he told Robbie why he couldn’t be found out.  
What was this awful feeling? Sympathy? Well, the villain didn’t like it. Not one bit.  
“I’m supposed to have the upper hand and Sporta - Sporta _ELF_ is making it impossible to scheme!” Robbie grumbled, running a hand through his pompadour and ruining the mousse. He sighed heavily, moving away from his workbench before he started throwing things again.  
Maybe he just needed a new angle. All of his plans thus far had centered around running Sportacus out of town. With that option off the table, that left his second most important goal; making the kids lazy. Easy enough.   
His gaze wandered over to his Disguise Machine’s tubes and he paused as one of his old outfits caught his eye. A slow grin spread on his lips. Maybe a reprisal was in order… 

Stephanie directed Sportacus to grab a cart once they arrived at the store and she took charge of the list. The hero was grateful for the help. He thought he could overcome just about any obstacle, but one look at the rows and rows and rows of foodstuffs had the blue elf overwhelmed.  
“Ok, let’s start here,” Stephanie pointed and Sportacus dutifully followed, watching the pink haired girl toss different boxes of cookies into the cart. So many different flavors for sugar, Sportacus thought absently.   
Stephanie whipped out a pen from her purse and started crossing off lines on the paper as they rounded to the next aisle.  
“At least he bakes his own cakes,” She murmured, struggling to grab a large sack from a bottom shelf. Sportacus leaned over and snagged it, easily setting it in the cart. She gave him a grateful smile.  
“Oh?” He asked, picking up the next sack the girl pointed to. She nodded.  
“Yeah, no cake mixes, just flour, sugar, milk and eggs. Oh, and cocoa. I guess that makes sense.”  
At Sportacus’ lost look, Stephanie giggled, “Because you only get one cake from a box mix. You can get a lot of cakes from buying all the raw stuff.”  
Oh, that did make sense, the elf agreed. Robbie did like to make things himself. Stephanie led on to the cereal aisle, picking up a colorful box proclaiming _a bite of sugar in every spoonful!_ on the front. Sportacus shuddered. How in the world did Robbie eat this stuff all the time? Next, a tub of coffee grounds went into the cart. He really, really hoped that was for bulk and not one consumption.  
“Ok, that's all of the first half,” Stephanie put another line through the list, absently chewing on the back of her pen as she checked through it.  
“First half?!” Sportacus choked, feeling his resolve falter. Stephanie snorted trying to hide a grin.  
“I think Robbie’s playing tricks on you, Sportacus. Most of this stuff keeps for a while.”  
“I hope so, he threatened to eat all of it if I so much as replaced one thing with something remotely healthy,” the hero muttered, missing Stephanie’s look as they moved on to the refrigerated sections. She shook her head and caught up to the hapless blue-clad adult and helped him find the pudding.  
“You could always _add_ something healthy,” She suggested, gesturing to the vanilla cups with cut up fruit in it next to the ones on the list, “Get both, maybe if its there he’ll try it.”  
“That’s… a really good idea, Stephanie,” Sportacus picked out a small pack with the sweetest type of sportscandy he could see and added it to the cart with a conspiratory smile shared with his pink-haired assistant.  
“Ooh! Yoo-hoo! Helloooo Sportacus and little Stephanie!”  
Sportacus stopped short, seeing Ms. Busybody at the other end of the aisle, waving. Stephanie cringed.  
“Hello, Ms. Busybody,” They answered in tandem, realizing it would look even more suspicious if they tried to duck away.  
“What’s all this? Ooh, dear, that’s quite a lot of cookies and sweets!” The older woman jokingly admonished as she came closer and peeked into their cart. Sportacus fought down a blush at being caught.  
“Actually, it's for a - uh - sleepover!” Stephanie quickly fibbed, catching the elf’s eye with a brief nod.  
“Ye - Yes! Yes, Stephanie asked me to help her get everything for it,” Sportacus hated lying, but there was no way he was going to live down buying Robbie’s groceries with the town’s main gossip.  
“Ooh?”  
“Yeah! All five of us, you know us kids!” Stephanie forced out a nervous laugh. Sportacus helpfully nodded. Ms. Busybody fell for it.  
“Ooh, how lovely! And so sweet to help the children! Well, have fun, toodle-loo,” She took off to finish her own shopping. Sportacus let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.  
“That was too close,” He murmured, steering the cart in the opposite direction. Stephanie nodded in agreement.  
“Let’s get the ice cream and get you out of here,” She whispered.

The rest of the shopping wasn’t too harrowing. Stephanie made sure to check the list twice before leading Sportacus to the checkout. Despite getting so much stuff, the pink haired girl chose the self-check and after showing the hero once, they managed to scan and bag the whole lot pretty quick.  
“Thank you for all your help, Stephanie,” Sportacus gratefully said as they walked out the exit. He easily picked up all of the bags for the walk back to Robbie’s lair.  
“You’re welcome, Sportacus,” She smiled, giving the hero a wave, “I’m going to go make sure Stingy didn’t keep all the candy for himself!”  
Sportacus laughed as the pink haired girl bounded off before rolling his shoulders and heading for the billboard.

Robbie would always be grateful for his pack rat tendencies when it came to his mechanical projects. The old ship on wheels just needed a touch up of lacquer on the wood panels, maybe a replacement of the railing on one side, and some oil for the moving parts and outwardly she would be as good as the day he built her. He would have to find his larger wrench, though, to get into the gearbox underneath to ensure nothing truly needed replacing.  
He stalked back out to the main part of his lair to hunt down said tool when he heard the clank of his hatch being opened. Sportacus was already back? Robbie snapped around to look at the time and blinked. Oh, he’d been digging through his stuff for a lot longer than he thought.  
Said elf came tumbling out of the chute a little more clumsily than before, cradling the mass of bags from the grocery. Sportacus spotted Robbie and triumphantly held them up.  
“I got everything on the list,” He proclaimed, settling the haul on the metal counter by the fridge. Robbie offered a raised brow in answer. He wasn’t actually going to check, he believed the elf, but he was too tired to banter right now.  
“Great,” He managed, scooting closer to make sure things got put where he wanted them. Sportacus cocked his head at the taller man.  
“Are you ok? You’ve got something - ” The hero reached up to swipe a smudge of grease off Robbie’s cheek nonchalantly, missing the wide-eyed look the villain gave him as he inspected the mess on his thumb.  
“Oh! Were you working on stuff?” Sportacus actually sounded interested. Robbie was having too hard a time processing to notice immediately.  
“Uh, yeah. Well, sort of. Fixing an old project,” The red-and-purple clad villain finally muttered after a beat, realizing the hero had already emptied the bags into the fridge and cabinets while the lanky man stood there.  
“Which one?” Sportacus prompted, smiling helpfully. Robbie swallowed thickly before he stepped away, needing his space suddenly.  
“The, uh, the ship.”  
“Oh no, is old Rottenbeard making a reappearance?” The hero teased, not seeming to have noticed Robbie’s weirdness. Or at least not commenting on it. The villain let out a huff, but secretly he was actually kind of touched that Sportadork remembered the pirate’s name.  
“Maybe. If I told it wouldn’t be much of a plot, would it?”  
“I suppose not,” Sportacus agreed, shrugging. Robbie felt a little bit of his energy coming back as he sneered in return. They were interrupted by Sportacus’ crystal pinging urgently.  
“Someone needs my help,” The hero announced to no one in particular, but Robbie was used to that quirk by now. What he wasn’t expecting was for Sportacus to _smile_ at him and pat his arm before bouncing off to the chute.  
“I’ll see you next week, Robbie!” And he was off.

The villain stood there long after Sportacus had left, trying to process what in the blue heck had happened. That awful, weird feeling was back and he could still feel the ghost of Sportacus’ warmth on his cheek. Nobody touched Robbie if they didn’t have to. Catching him, pushing him, brushing past him; all of those were normal, if sometimes self-inflicted causes. Here he was blackmailing someone and they were acting like they were friends -

Nope, he was too tired to think about this right now. The villain shook his head violently before stomping over to his fuzzy chair and collapsing into it. This was future Robbie’s problem. Present Robbie needed a nap before dealing with future Robbie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh no, feels.
> 
> Also, credit to OtterlyDeerlightful for the idea to send Sport to the store! (Thank you!)


	4. The Second Week Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fibbing is bad. Also, Robbie really needs to stop denying things.

“You know, I wouldn’t have to save you all the time if you stuck to climbing shorter things,” Sportacus gently admonished as he set the kitten safely on the ground, chuckling as the poor thing mewed softly. He gave her a quick scratch behind her little twitchy ears before he stood and stretched away the ache from leaping into the tree.  
As the excitement wore off from his mad dash across town, the hero’s mind wandered back to the almost innocuous conversation he’d had with an obviously tired Robbie. Exhaustion always seemed to dull the purposefully hurtful quips and sarcastic bite to anything the villain said, and Sportacus would be lying if he said he didn’t prefer it. 

Small hurried voices broke his train of thought. Sportacus glanced up and smiled as Trixie, Stingy, and Stephanie ducked past the gate to the park and hunched down under the low wall, obviously hiding. He could hear someone else coming and quickly vaulted over from the opposite side, cartwheeling over to kneel just next to the kids in their hiding spot.  
“Who are we hiding from?” He whispered. Trixie hissed quietly, pressing a finger to her lips as Stingy snuck a glance around the corner of the wall. Stephanie looked miserable. Before Sportacus could try to ask again, the footsteps got closer and familiar voices rang out.

“Ooh, I’m sure she just hadn’t mentioned it yet, Milford,” Ms. Busybody tittered, patting the Mayor’s hand where she had it pinned in the crook of her arm as they walked along the sidewalk. The Mayor looked glum.  
“But Bessie, she _never_ plans anything without asking first!”  
“Perhaps she just forgot!” Ms. Busybody gestured vaguely with her free hand, “Afterall, _everyone_ forgets to do things _sometimes_. It’s not the end of the world, Milford.”  
“You’re probably right,” the Mayor sighed, looking like he wanted to protest further. Ms. Busybody held up her hand.  
“Of course I’m right. I’m sure she just got excited! She looked positively giddy while they picked out puddings. I’m sure she simply forgot. There’s nothing to it, dear,” their footsteps grew quieter as they rounded the next corner, heading to the town hall.

As soon as they were out of sight, Trixie let out a breath. Stephanie groaned into her hands, covering her face as Stingy settled them both with a look. Sportacus worried his lip, glancing at Stephanie.  
“Care to explain to the rest of us what’s going on?” Stingy huffed, though he did still keep his voice down. Trixie rolled her eyes. Sportacus gently laid a hand on the pink-haired girl’s shoulder.  
“...Stephanie? Did something happen?” He gently prodded. She nodded.  
“Ms. Busybody apparently mentioned the ‘sleepover’ to Uncle while I was at the treehouse,” Stephanie muttered, muffled by her hands. Sportacus visibly drooped.  
“Oh.”  
“Oh? What’s ‘Oh’? Why does Sportacus know what’s going on?” Stingy demanded, narrowing his eyes on the rest of the group.  
“Dummy! Stephanie was in the middle of explaining it when she heard them coming down the street!” Trixie interjected, pointing vaguely in the direction the two adults had walked, “Stephanie fibbed to Ms. Busybody, and then she told the Mayor, who got upset at Stephanie about why she didn’t ask first, and now we’re here!”  
Stingy harrumphed at being called a ‘dummy’ but seemed to accept most of the explanation. “So why does Sportacus know? He just got here.”  
“Because she fibbed for me,” the hero murmured, looking very apologetic. Stephanie finally raised her head from her hands and let out a sigh.  
“Well, so what? We’ve all fibbed,” Stingy muttered, but backed off at another look from Trixie.  
“I’ve never fibbed to Uncle, at least not on purpose,” Stephanie clarified, wiping her nose with a sniffle. Sportacus winced.  
“I shouldn’t have let you fib in the first place,” The hero managed, “I’m supposed to be the adult here.”  
Stephanie couldn’t help but snort, a smile fighting its way onto her face at that.  
“We both know what Ms. Busybody would have done if we told her we were shopping for _Robbie_ ,” the pink haired girl giggled. Stingy and Trixie shared a look.  
“Wait, you were doing what?” They both asked, incredulous. Stephanie shared a look with the blue-clad hero and Sportacus smiled ruefully. He supposed the rest of the kids knowing wasn’t a big deal, they just didn’t need to know the whole truth.  
“Robbie fixed my hat the other day, so I was doing him a favor in return. Stephanie was helping me since… well, I can’t eat sugary foods so I didn’t know what some of the things were on his list.”  
“And then we ran into Ms. Busybody in the grocery store with a cart full of sweets and cookies and… well. Very unhealthy things,” Stephanie added, “So I panicked… and fibbed. I didn’t think she would say anything to Uncle about it.”  
Trixie and Stingy nodded along, wincing in sympathy at Ms. Busybody knowing anything that juicy. She was the town’s queen of gossip, afterall. Thankfully, the other kids didn’t jump on the fact that Robbie had done something nice like Stephanie had. Sportacus really didn’t want to have to deflect that line of questioning again.  
“Where _has_ Robbie been, anyways? It's been, like, an entire week!” Trixie exclaimed, finally standing and dusting off her red pants. The rest of the group realized they were still hiding and followed suit.  
“I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but when I left his house today, he was working on something,” Sportacus hinted. The kids all shared a conspiratorial look and Trixie giggled. Stephanie playfully grinned and propped her hands on her hips.  
“Well, it better be worth getting into trouble with Uncle!”

Robbie knew he was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming because the situation was just too improbable. He was outside ( _bleh_ ), the kids were playing much too loudly ( _double-bleh_ ), and the worst part was he was _playing with them_. Ok, well, technically he was standing there watching them play with that old robotic dog he’d invented some time ago, but occasionally one of the brats would toss the toy they were throwing for the mechanical mutt to him and he was _tossing it back_. It wasn’t very villainous. It was awful. Horrible. Other words to describe terrible things...

It was nice.

No! Robbie snorted himself awake, sprawled gracelessly in his orange chair. He swiped his arm across his face, wiping off the drool with an incoherent grumble. Righting himself, he ran a hand through his mussed hair before slowly standing up, his back crackling in protest as the villain let out a pained groan.  
What the heck was his subconscious thinking? Sure, occasionally indulging the brats with a fun plot or scheme was fine, but he was the _villain_. He didn’t just play. And he certainly didn’t turn formerly dangerous means of making trouble into pets. Probably. Ok, maybe that last one was a little tempting. He just needed to remove the trigger word from its behavioral modification -  
“Argh! Not now,” Robbie hissed, throwing up his hands in defeat of his traitorous mind. When he wanted to scheme, it was useless. When he wanted to stop thinking about ways to be _not_ villainous, it was on overdrive.  
“What was I doing before my nap?” The lanky man muttered to himself as he crossed his lair to his kitchen, feeling peckish. Maybe a snack would remind him. He pried open the door of his fridge, rooting around in all the goodies he’d made Sportakook pick up earlier.  
“Wait, what’s this?” The villain picked up a pudding cup he didn’t recognise. Turning it over he read the label with narrowed eyes.  
“Vanilla pudding with real fruit slices?!” Robbie snarled at first, gripping the poor little plastic container with a fury. How _dare_ that insufferable blue kangaroo try to replace his sweets with his damnable sportscandy?! Robbie tore through his fridge trying to find the item the sneaky elf had switched out.  
His fury fizzled out quickly as he realized everything on his list was there. Vanilla and Chocolate swirl, Double Chocolate Fudge, Butterscotch, even the sugar-filled fake flavored Strawberry Cheesecake was all there. Robbie slowly thunked his head against the fridge door with a tired sigh.  
“...Right. Hero. What was I thinking?” He muttered darkly to himself as he set the accused pudding back on the shelf, glaring at it. He grabbed a Cheesecake one instead in silent protest to the real strawberries he was almost tricked into consuming. Why he didn’t just toss the sportscandied pudding, he didn’t know. Best not to think about it.

Robbie ended up not finding that one wrench he needed to work on the pirate ship. Instead, now well past sunset, the villain had the mechanical guts of a familiar mangy purple mutt strewn over his workbench. He was searching through a box of wires to his left and holding a connector between two fingers on his right.  
“Where did I put that blasted thing,” He grumbled aloud, tipping the box over to spill the entire contents. Finally he let out a triumphant little sound as he plucked out a bright red wire, twisting it into the connector he was holding. Next was a black wire Robbie wound around a bolt on the outside of the connector and then tucked it inside the dog’s chest cavity.  
“And now, I just remove the… this thing,” the villain murmured as he tugged at another nest of wires and a small box. Once that came free, he tossed it haphazardly over a shoulder. He frowned, looking the mess over with a critical eye before settling back to take in the whole project.  
“Hm… no, I still need to replace those. Maybe blue. No, green. Yeah, I’ll change it to green,” He stood up, shuffling over to another box nearby to pluck a thick sheet of green plastic out of the sprawling mess of parts. Tossing the green plastic and both of the dog’s optics into one of his many converter machines, Robbie slammed the thing shut and punched a series of orders into the panel. It spluttered, and the villain gave it a good smack on the side, startling it into starting. Robbie turned around and leaned a hip against the counter, cradling his hand with a soft hiss. He ran through a mental checklist while the pain ebbed away, glancing up to see the clock. Well past everyone else’s bedtime. The man snorted, pushing off the counter as his machine dinged. 

He could work a few more hours. He was almost done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Week #2 decided it wasn't done with me. There may be at least one more of these before I get to Week #3 / Favor #3. Sorry!
> 
> Also, how many times can I say fib in a single paragraph until it stops feeling like a word? This many.


	5. The Second Week Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robbie's making a spot of Trouble...

Robbie Rotten loved being lazy. He loved lounging. He especially loved sleeping. Heck, he would sleep all day if nothing dared to disturb him.  
What he didn’t terribly love was waking up with his face mashed into a sharp and uncomfortable pile of machine parts. The tall, lanky man let out a long, loud groan as all the aches surfaced in his now conscious body from falling asleep at his workbench hunched over a project. He muttered half-hearted curses as he forced himself to sit up and stretch, wincing. What time was it? A bleary-eyed glare in the direction of the clock revealed it to be the cheery hour of 5 am.  
“Ugh, no. I refuse,” he complained to no one, managing to stand with effort. He spared a glance down at whatever had kept him up tinkering all night and paused.  
Right. He put Trouble back together. All thanks to that dumb dream he’d had. Whatever, it was done now, no point in getting worked up about it. He ran both hands through his hair with another tired groan and shuffled off to go clean himself up.

“There, much better,” The freshly showered villain preened in front of his bathroom mirror. He gave Sportacus and the kids a lot of flack for their healthy habits, but that didn’t mean he was going to live with his terrible morning breath. Even if he was going to go back to sleep. He wasn’t going to brush 20 times though. That was just excessive.  
The dark-haired villain traded his purple towel for his pajamas and sleeping robe, nearly ready to simply konk out in his orange chair, when his eye slipped back to the mechanical mutt. All in all, it looked exactly the same except for the currently dull green optics instead of the vicious red. His damnable curiosity got the better of him and he stalked over to his workbench, hand hesitating over the switch on the dog’s back.

Had he actually finished fixing it? He couldn’t quite recall. Oh well, live once and all that.

Green optics flickered on and a head full of teeth swiveled slowly as if waking up from a really long nap. Robbie stepped back, wringing his hands fitfully as he waited. The robot’s ears flicked experimentally and a soft mechanical whine escaped. Lack of yapping was a good sign, at least he’d fixed that.  
“Welcome back,” He murmured, garnering the dog’s attention. The robot cocked its head to the side and whined again, questioning.  
“You were… sleeping for a long time,” Robbie explained, tentatively reaching out a hand. He preemptively winced as the head swiveled, but his fingers met the cool steel of its snout instead of sharp teeth. The dog pushed its head against Robbie’s hand, whining again. There was a tightness in his chest that the exhausted villain was going to staunchly ignore.

Maybe this hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.

“I hate to greet and dash, but I haven’t really slept since I finished stuffing your insides back in,” Robbie sighed, adding in a soft grumble, “Don’t even know why I woke you up.”  
His answer was a very helpful mechanical bark (thankfully much less annoying than its original) and the whirl of freshly oiled servos winding up to allow the mutt to wag its articulated tail. Robbie snorted.  
“Well, at least one of us is appropriately excited.”  
Another whine. The villain rolled his eyes. Struggling with the weight, Robbie managed to scoop up the mechanical disaster and set it on the lair floor where it was safe to roll around without falling.  
“There, now you can’t cause too much trouble.”  
As soon as the word left him, Robbie clapped a hand over his mouth and gave the dog a hesitant, wide-eyed stare. No psychotic barking, snapping, or chasing happened. The purple mutt cocked its head at him, one ear perked up while the other flopped to the side. Robbie forced himself to calm down, rolling his shoulders to relieve the tension.  
“...Right. Of course I fixed that. Wouldn’t do to have you go off from just saying a silly word,” He reasoned, stalking off to his chair and the promise of a little more sleep. He heard the dog’s wheels gently squeak as they started up, following the man, well, doggedly. The villain snorted again, flopping gracelessly into his fuzzy orange armchair.  
“Look, just keep it quiet and let me have a few more hours, all right? Go do… dog stuff. Or something.”  
The robot let out a modulated snort and spun around in a tight circle before pressing up against Robbie’s ankle. The villain flinched, but fought down the immediate gut reaction to push the mechanical mutt away. 

Whatever. It wanted to be bored sitting there? Not his problem. He snuggled into the chair and closed his eyes, determined to not be awake at this ungodly hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I accidentally brought the dog back. I'm only a little sorry Robbie might turn into a pet dad. You can't stop me.
> 
> Week #3 is on the way; this was the last side-bit for Week #2.


	6. The Third Week

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trouble is a very good boy and Sportacus agrees.

Sportacus sprang awake the morning of the first day of the third week since Robbie found out the hero’s secret. The blue elf had taken the time to really assess this weird situation all last week, and had come to the conclusion that he was going to make the absolute most out of being technically invited to Robbie’s lair. Granted, the invitation was directly tied to the villain blatantly blackmailing said secret, but Sportacus pushed that aside in favor of being leaps and bounds closer to something resembling friends with the self-proclaimed recluse.  
He just needed to turn it to his advantage. Easier said than done.

The slightly-above-average hero ate his breakfast while doing a one-handed handstand before backflipping to the oversized button that released his telescope from the ship’s storage. Catching it without looking, Sportacus bounded out to the ship’s extended gangway to see what everyone was up to.

The Mayor was at his desk in the town hall reading the morning paper. Ms. Busybody popped in with a pair of coffee cups and her cell phone pinned to her ear, sharing the latest juicy gossip from a friend of a friend in the next town over.

Stingy was washing his favorite yellow car with his favorite yellow sponge, humming a jaunty little tune to his favorite piggy bank.

Pixel chased Trixie around the big apple tree, giggling as the pigtailed girl tossed a baton to Ziggy who took off running for the park. Pixel changed targets and bolted after the blonde, leaving Trixie to collapse in a heap on the grass.  
“You’re never gonna catch me!” Ziggy announced, ducking past the park’s gate with the redhead hot on his heels.  
“But I might!” Stephanie popped out from behind the slide, blocking Ziggy’s path as the boy yelped and tried to change direction. Pixel crashed into the blonde and they fell to the ground with loud peels of laughter. Trixie trotted up a moment later, snorting and grinning as she and Stephanie helped untangle their friends.

Sportacus smiled to himself as he panned over Lazytown, glad to see that no one was in trouble yet. He swung the telescope over to the billboard outside of town knowing he probably wouldn’t see much, but checking anyway. The silly painting of the cow was getting a bit faded, but otherwise the villain’s lair was quiet.  
Satisfied, the hero backflipped inside and tossed the telescope back into its storage slot, calling for the ladder. Might as well join the kids until noon.

The game of team tag ended just after noon with a resounding tie and a chorus of agreement to cool off at Pixel’s with some water and a video game or two. Sportacus saw the kids off, chuckling as Trixie complained that the blue-clad elf didn’t even look winded.  
“I wouldn’t be a hero if I couldn’t keep up!”  
“Yeah, yeah, show off,” the pigtailed girl teased as she bounded off to Pixel’s. Sportacus offered a wave before bounding off himself.

As Sportacus pulled open the hatch and dropped into the chute, he had a passing amused thought that this was becoming routine. Well, as routine as anything with Robbie got. He rolled to his feet as the chute spat the elf out into Robbie’s lair, glancing around for the villain.  
“Robbie?” The hero called, padding across the main area to look behind some of the large machinery curiously. Sportacus suddenly heard a dull thud and a familiar muffled voice coming from further back than the elf knew Robbie’s lair went. He cautiously padded down the narrow hall strewn with parts, half-finished projects, and two closed doors until the hall opened up into another room. Sportacus blinked as he recognized a few of the larger machines and projects from previous schemes taking up space.

“It has to be in here,” Robbie muttered, kicking aside a large piece of sheet metal. Trouble barked helpfully as it burst out from under a pile of scrap, holding something in its mouth. Sportacus blinked at seeing that robotic canine again, but it didn’t seem to be the unholy terror of before.  
“What do you have there?” Robbie knelt down, holding out his hand so Trouble could drop the object. The villain inspected it with a slight frown.  
“Ugh, close. It's bigger than this one, but you’re on the right track,” The lanky man stood, pivoting around to glare at a different pile of parts with his hands propped on his hips. The mechanical mutt paused, sticking its snout in the air before rotating to zero in on the lurking elf. Sportacus froze. The dog growled low.  
“Hm? What’s got you - oh, Sportaflop.”  
“H-hey Robbie,” The hero gave a small wave, blue eyes still glued to the growling dog. Robbie rolled his eyes and bopped Trouble on the head, startling the robot.  
“Knock it off, the elf’s allowed,” The villain admonished with a gently shaken finger. The dog cocked its head to the side, processing for a moment before its reaction completely 180s. Offering up a happy bark, the mechanical mutt zipped around obstacles to skid to a stop in front of Sportacus, rubbing its head against his calf. The hero blinked, thoroughly confused but leaned down to give the metal beast a tentative pet anyway. Robbie snorted, rolling his eyes again as he crossed his arms loosely over his vested chest.  
“I’d love to know when I programmed you to be such a little suck up,” Robbie sneered. Sportacus chuckled as the dog’s tail wagged, seemingly ignoring its master in favor of the new person. The hero squat down to its level and used both hands to playfully cup the metal jaw and grin.  
“Who’s a good dog? Huh? It is you?” Sportacus grinned wider as the tail wagged harder and the mutt let out a whine.  
“Oh god, don’t encourage it!”  
Sportacus rubbed the dog’s ears as he glanced up at the grumbling dark-haired man. “What’s his name?”  
“Trouble,” Robbie muttered, secretly pleased with the almost flinch the blue elf had at the word. But when the robot didn’t react, the pets resumed.  
“The irony is not lost on me.”  
“He’s really cute when he’s not chasing everyone,” Sportacus praised, earning a playful whine and a gentle headbutt from Trouble. Robbie shrugged, avidly ignoring the weird feelings he felt watching the blue sports hero coddle his robot.  
“Cute, shmute. It's supposed to be helping me find my wrench.”  
“Maybe I could help too!” Sportacus offered, giving the dog one last pat before jumping up. Robbie pursed his lips, narrowing his gaze at the energetic elf.  
“Do you even know what a wrench is?”  
“Robbie,” Sportacus chided, though his rueful smile killed some of the reprimand. The villain grumbled under his breath before holding out the tool he still had in his hand.  
“It looks like this one, but it's a 20 millimeter version,” Robbie explained with a hint of condescension, “And it will have ‘20’ written on it.”  
“Ok!” Sportacus nodded before backflipping over to a smaller pile to start. The taller male fought not to roll his eyes again at the unnecessary gymnastics.  
“You too, mutt,” He pointed at Trouble and the dog barked once, swiveling around to dive into the previous pile it had been searching. Robbie pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered something about being surrounded by excitable puppies before he too resumed his search.

The search went on in comfortable silence, only interrupted by the occasional scrape of metal or the whirl of Trouble’s servos as it moved through the piles. Robbie was loathe to admit it was kind of nice to have the help, and Sportacus wasn’t even doing it as one of the favors. He’d just offered. No strings attached. Didn’t mean the villain had to acknowledge it, though.  
“Wait, I think - yes! I found it!” Sportacus excitedly held a wrench aloft, sliding down a sheet of siding before front flipping to a bare patch of floor near Robbie. The dark-haired man held out a hand expectantly, inspecting the tool once the hero relinquished it. There, plainly emblazoned on the handle was ‘20 mm’ and the villain let out a huff.  
“You know I’ve been looking for this for almost two _entire_ weeks?” He muttered, mostly to the wrench.  
“It was lodged inside the soccer robot,” Sportacus explained, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to indicate said purple monstrosity.  
“What? _How?_ That thing used 14 millimeter bolts!” Robbie grumbled, frustratedly gesticulating in the robot’s direction, “I didn’t even bother looking over there!”  
“Well, then I’m glad I was here to help,” Sportacus’ smile hurt to look at, so the villain didn’t. The taller man whirled around and muttered something that vaguely rhymed with ‘Thank you’ as he picked his way out of the part piles. Trouble zipped around in a little circle and barked happily, following Robbie as he stalked over to his intended project.  
“You’re welcome!” The elf responded, dutifully ignoring what Robbie had actually said, and followed the pair with a cartwheel tossed in for good measure.  
“Yeah, yeah,” the villain muttered, grabbing hold of a jack stand as he passed it, hefting it with a pained grunt from the weight. Sportacus started to open his mouth to offer to carry the obviously heavy tool, but snapped his jaw shut. Robbie did this kind of thing on his own all the time.  
The dark-haired man roughly dropped the jack stand just underneath the pirate ship, pushing it with his foot until it was in the proper place.  
“Since you’re here, make yourself useful,” Robbie snapped, pointing at the stand’s lever. Sportacus nodded. He could do manual labor, no problem. The hero grabbed the lever and pumped, watching the ship tip up and reveal her underbelly. He stopped when Robbie held up a hand.  
“Great, now, don’t touch it,” The villain instructed, climbing underneath the ship on his back, wrench in hand. Sportacus knelt down to watch curiously, sparing a glance to Trouble as the dog nudged closer as well.  
“I should scrap you for being such a pain,” Robbie muttered to the chassis welded to the bottom of the wooden ship, scooting further underneath until he could finally reach the gearbox. With the correct wrench in hand, the bolts came free easily. Popping off the metal casing, the villain assessed the parts with a critical eye. Trouble whined softly and Sportacus absently patted the mechanical mutt to keep himself from getting up and doing stretches as the minutes stretched on.  
“Sportadork,” Robbie flicked a look to the kneeling elf before pointing behind him, “Get me the round part out of that box, there.”  
Sportacus turned around and spotted the large cardboard box in question, dragging it closer to look inside. His eyes widened comically.  
“What… is this?”  
“A synchro. Well, part of one, anyways,” Robbie explained, rolling his eyes as he wrenched another bolt off, freeing a shaft he shifted out of the way.  
“...It looks like a torture device,” The hero muttered, pulling out a hefty metal band with massive, tightly spaced elongated gear teeth that spun around the smooth inner ring. Sportacus did not want to know what would happen if your fingers got caught in it. Robbie startled him with a choked laugh.  
“It's just a transmission part, you drama queen!” He yanked on something inside the gearbox and the same part dropped out, forcing a gasp out of the man as he caught it before it hit him in the chest. It still managed to drip fluids all over his hands and clothes, though. Robbie huffed, rolling the dented and worn one out of the way.  
Give it here, com’on,” Robbie made a grabby hand motion impatiently. Sportacus hesitated, but at an annoyed look from the villain, the blue-clad elf passed the part under the ship. Robbie visibly strained to hold the heavy synchro gear with one hand but he said nothing, struggling before hefting the part into place. A loud bang echoed as Robbie applied a liberal use of manual assistance with the handle of his wrench. Sportacus winced, but didn’t raise question. It was another long hour while Robbie put the gearbox back together and Sportacus stretched out to do a few pushups before the villain spoke.  
“Could have been worse, it could have been the whole lot,” Robbie murmured off-handedly, picking up the casing to push it back into place.  
“I’m suddenly really glad the airship does her own repairs,” Sportacus shuddered before finishing his set. The villain snorted, smirking as he shoved bolts back into their places and tightened them down.  
“Lucky you. I haven’t _quite_ managed to invent self-repairing machines,” Robbie lamented, thumping the outside of the gearbox with his knuckles.  
Sportacus shifted out of the way and stood as the villain wriggled out from under the ship, huffing with effort as he sat up. His nose, cheek, hands, and clothes were splattered with transmission fluid. The elf fought down a fond smile at the sight, offering a hand to the other male. Robbie glared at it for a second and Sportacus was sure he was going to get told off, or at the least get his hand slapped away. However, the villain surprised them both as he grabbed hold and let the hero pull him to his feet.  
“...Thanks,” Robbie reluctantly muttered, jerking his hand away to run his fingers through his hair. 

Trouble broke the sightly awkward moment with a bark, zipping around the two excitedly. Robbie rolled his eyes and scoffed at the enthusiastic robot. He took the moment to twist the release on the jack stand, dropping the ship back onto her wheels with a whump. Sportacus shot the villain a look before smiling wryly.  
“You’ve got - uh, stuff all over,” the hero gestured vaguely. Robbie cocked a brow, but spared a glance down to see all of the transmission fluid with a groan. Sportacus snorted, hiding a laugh behind a cough when Robbie shot the elf a glare.  
“Well, I’m sure you’re just itching to get back to your precious flippity flopping, so shoo,” The dark-haired male sneered, flicking his wrist as he stepped around Trouble to head out of the room toward the main part of his lair. Sportacus sighed as he followed, tempted to argue that he was happy to help but he could read between the lines of the dismissal.  
“Do you want me to come back later?”  
“What for?” Robbie blinked, looking honestly confused.  
“For your favor?” Sportacus prompted. The villain paused.  
“Uh,” he managed, jerking around to spy a timepiece cheerily letting him know that the sports elf and he had just spent roughly 6 hours together and the damnable nice guy wasn’t considering that at all part of the bargain. Robbie shot a look back at the fidgeting hero and had a sudden grand idea worm its way into his mind.  
“Well, if you’re offering to do _extra_ favors to suck up to my bad side, then yes, I will take full advantage and demand you back here tomorrow.”  
Sportacus snorted again, rolling his eyes once the villain turned his back on the elf.  
“Sure, Robbie. After noon, as usual?” He asked as he leaned down to give the mechanical dog a goodbye pat which was happily received.  
Robbie pointedly ignored how casual the blue buffoon sounded about that. “Of course.”  
“OK, I’ll be here. Have a goodnight, Robbie.”  
The villain offered up a dismissive wave and the hero cartwheeled off to the chute and out of the lair. 

Robbie sunk against the closest firm surface as soon as he was alone again. Well, as alone as he could be right now. Trouble cocked its head up at its master curiously and whined softly.  
“I should get cleaned up,” he announced to no one in particular, but the dog barked happily in response. The villain had a lot of planning to do (and a lot of the last 6 hours to emphatically not think about), but it was going to have to wait until he wasn’t covered in machine fluids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, the overly long transmission portion of this is all my car-hobbyist husband's fault. He insisted I use actual car parts and actual details when I asked roughly how long the process would take... so, I'm sorry. 
> 
> Also, to answer your un-asked question - yes, Stingy was humming the MINE! song.


	7. The Third Week Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreams sometimes sorta-kinda-in-a-way come true.

The next morning, Robbie Rotten was surprisingly up well before noon and mucking about in his kitchen. He’d opted for his purple apron to keep most of the mess off of him as he worked.  
“You are being really unhelpful,” Robbie sneered at Trouble as the mechanical menace twirled between his legs while the lanky man balanced a bowl of melted chocolate on his hip while he stirred. He rolled his eyes as he got an excited bark in return. The villain carefully shifted to pour the chocolate into a mould set on the counter, sticking out his tongue for maximum concentration. He swiped a finger across the rim of the bowl once the last mould was filled before licking said finger clean with a pleased sound. Store-bought chocolates were fine, but there was just something better about making your own. Robbie smirked as he set the emptied bowl down, reaching for a small towel to wipe up a little splatter from the counter.  
“Now, just need to let those set,” He murmured, glancing over to a half finished disguise project draped over his sewing machine. The dark-haired man was pretty pleased with himself for managing to find blue and white striped fabric that would compliment his Rottenbeard disguise...  
Trouble abruptly let out a whine, tail wagging hopefully. Robbie rolled his eyes again, letting out an exasperated sigh.  
“Oh, alright already! So needy,” The villain lamented theatrically, picking up an old scrap of metal pipe and hucking it across his lair. Trouble’s wheels squealed as it took off, barking playfully as it gave chase. Robbie crossed his arms over his aproned vest, snorting despite the smile playing at his lips. A moment later, the robot skidded to stop in front of the lanky man, dropping the pipe with a loud clang and a happy bark.  
“Is this what we’re doing? You do realize how absolutely pointless this exercise is.”  
Bark. Wag.  
“You’re not going to leave me alone until I throw it again, are you?”  
Whine.  
“Ugh, you’re as bad as the elf, you know that?” Robbie scoffed, throwing up his arms. Trouble gave another long whine, ears twitching. The villain sighed, reaching down and picking up the pipe. He paused, tapping the pipe against his opposite palm for a moment before a thought hit him. He stalked over to his periscope and Trouble followed with a cocked head and a curious bark.  
“Haven’t heard the brats yet,” Robbie muttered, setting the pipe aside as he pulled the controls down. He checked the park. He checked around Town Hall. Good. Nobody was out and about yet, not even Sportacus. The villain roughly pushed the periscope back up.  
“Com’on, mutt, while I’m in a decent mood and waiting on the moulds to set anyways.”  
His answer was a happy bark as he ditched his apron.

Hefting Trouble out of the hatch was a feat. Robbie ended up having to get out the old chain he’d used the last time, but once he set the robot on solid ground, he unhooked the chain and left it by the hatch. They wouldn’t need it. With a familiar purple baseball in hand, dog and master made their way to the park.

Trixie bounded up to Ziggy’s bedroom window, knocking her knuckles against the pane.  
“Wake up, sleepyhead!” She called with a giggle as the candy-loving boy grumbled and pulled his bedsheets over his head.  
“...five more minutes…” He sleepily muttered. Trixie rolled her eyes and bounded off to the next friend’s house.

Robbie flopped lazily onto a bench, crossing his ankles comfortably while Trouble zipped circles around said bench. The villain rolled his eyes and wriggled to get extra comfy before pulling out the purple baseball from behind his back. Trouble barked excitedly, practically bouncing on its wheels.  
“We do this, and then you let me get back to work, deal?” He grumbled out the question, sighing as he got only more excited barking in answer. Robbie finally tossed the ball as far as he could, pleased when it bounced and rolled pretty far before Trouble managed to get after it. The dog was back in a flash, holding the ball up to the pinstriped villain. He tossed it again with a smile playing at the corners of his lips. Did this count as exercising? Trouble was doing all the work.

Trixie was ecstatic to find both Stephanie and Stingy already up and ready to play when the pigtailed girl jogged by. The three made it to Pixel’s, but the redhead had stayed up all night playing video games again so the friends circled back to get Ziggy.  
As they passed near the park, all three froze as they heard the distinct sound of mechanized barking and the whirl of wheels skidding on the pavement. Sharing a look between them, Stephanie, Stingy and Trixie dropped behind the low wall and snuck around the side. As they rounded the corner, there was Robbie Rotten sitting on a park bench taking a purple ball from the maw of the purple furred mechanical mutt they all recognized.  
“What’s he up to?” Stingy whispered. Trixie shrugged. Stephanie bit her lip and watched Robbie toss the ball. She couldn’t help but smile as the robot took off after it like a real dog, barking and tail wagging.  
“I think he’s just… playing,” Trixie managed, sounding unsure. They shared another look before turning their attention back to the surreal scene. The dog returned and Robbie took the ball back again, resting it on his knee.  
“Are you actually enjoying this? It seems really repetitive,” the villain tried to reason, but the robot just whined and eyed the ball. He snorted, rolling his eyes again before lifting the ball up to toss it again.  
“As long as I don’t have to get up, I guess,” He chuckled, leaning back on the bench as the dog took off after the ball again.  
Stephanie tugged on Stingy and Trixie’s shoulders, beckoning them further back. The kids all scooted back along the wall and out of Robbie’s immediate earshot.  
“Is it a scheme?” Trixie asked, keeping her voice down. The other two looked unsure. Suddenly, they all jumped as Sportacus backflipped over the low wall they were hiding behind and cartwheeled up to Robbie’s bench, not noticing the kids.  
“Good morning, Robbie!” the hero startled the villain, but the taller man simply groused and sunk down on the bench further with a withering glare.  
“Ugh, could you not so loudly, Sportakook? I already have to deal with Trouble being a noisy brat.”  
The kids all flinched at the word, but at a quick glance around the corner, the dog didn’t seem to react as it brought the ball back.  
“Sorry,” Sportacus grinned through his apology, but he did lower his voice. The hero knelt down and the spying kids were all shocked as the robot veered course to Sportacus instead.  
“Hey Trouble! Who’s a good boy, huh?” The blue-clad hero playfully ruffled the tuft of purple fur on the dog’s head as he took the ball himself, garnering a happy little whine from the robot. He stood, juggling the ball between his hands before chucking it clear past the treehouse. Trouble whirled and zipped off, barking after the purple blur. Robbie snorted.  
“Show off.”  
Sportacus helpfully shrugged, not denying the accusation. “You’re up before noon, I’m shocked.”  
“Was that a hint of sarcasm? I’m corrupting the great Sportaflop.”  
“I’m not great, just slightly-above-average,” The hero corrected, prompting an eyeroll out of the villain. The conversation paused as the mechanical mutt returned and Sportacus tossed the ball again, sending the dog off barking.

Stephanie glanced back at her friends and the three shared a confused look. Was Sportacus succeeding in getting Robbie to be friends? It didn’t sound quite like friends, but the villain wasn’t being mean, just… Robbie. Stephanie didn’t think the guy could manage a compliment without sandwiching it with a quip or a mean nickname. She gestured quietly for Stingy and Trixie to go back the way they came. They nodded in agreement, tiptoeing away.  
They hurried to Ziggy’s to find the blonde finally up and snacking on a lollipop as he made his bed. Trixie gestured wildly in the window until she got the boy’s attention.  
“Hey! I was just coming to find you guys! Are we going to the park?” Ziggy called, inside voice a mere myth to the the boy as he made his way outside to join the others. Immediately, Stingy shushed him.  
“We are, but Robbie’s there with the robot dog he built and he’s _talking to Sportacus!_ ” Stephanie whispered, sounding excited.  
“Wait, the bad dog that chased us?” Ziggy managed something close to a whisper. He wasn’t shouting at least.  
“Yeah, but it’s normal now, or something,” Trixie interjected, “It doesn’t care if you say trouble anymore.”  
“In fact, I think that’s its name,” Stingy supplied.  
“That’s what Sportacus called it,” Stephanie agreed. All four kids suddenly shared a wide-eyed look.  
“Wait, if the dog is nice now - ”  
“I’ve never gotten to play with a dog before!”  
“I wonder if it would like -my- toys?”  
Stephanie grinned and planted her hands on her hips. “Well, there’s only one way to find out. Let’s go ask Robbie if we can play with Trouble!”

Sportacus was doing a handstand by the time Trouble came back with the ball for the third time. Robbie leaned forward with his arms draped over his knees and beckoned the mutt over. Happily zipping to its master with a bark, the villain took the ball and threw it. It didn’t go nearly as far as the hero’s, but Trouble bolted after it with just as much enthusiasm.  
“You know - ”  
“If the next words out of your mouth have _anything_ to do with exercise, sportscandy, or going to bed at reasonable times, I will throw the ball directly at your head.”  
Sportacus laughed, springing to his feet before hopping up to perch on top of the low wall next to the bench Robbie was capitalizing. The robot dog returned and dropped the ball into Robbie’s hands with a happy little spin. The villain glared at the elf, waving the ball threateningly at him before throwing it pathetically far for Trouble.  
“Is that a threat? Because I think I could dodge if you throw it like that,” The hero cheekily replied. Robbie slowly turned an incredulous look at the other.  
“Why are you being so… weird?”  
“I’m not,” Sportacus assured, dropping from his perch to sitting with his legs dangling off the ledge, “It's called friendly conversation, Robbie.”  
“I am definitely rubbing off on you. _That_ was sarcasm.”  
“How do you know I don’t just talk like this normally when the kids aren’t around?”  
Robbie scoffed, waving his hand dismissively. “You’re up to something.”  
“What am I up to?”  
“I think you’re trying to be endearing to lure me into a false sense of security so I’ll drop the blackmail.”  
“...Is it working?” Sportacus face looked so hopeful. Robbie jerked his gaze away to take the ball from the returning metal mutt, refusing to acknowledge the return of the stupid weird feelings.  
The villain was about to unleash a scathing retort, but the words died on his tongue as suddenly he and the dumb elf weren’t alone.  
“Hey Sportacus! Oh! And hey, Robbie!” Stephanie chirped cheerfully as she and 3 of the other kids walked through the park gate. Something about the way the girl said the greeting had Sportacus frowning ever so slightly, like she knew Robbie was there already. His suspicions were confirmed when Ziggy spotted Trouble at Robbie’s feet and excitedly whispered to Stingy. Said robot had its ears cocked curiously, looking up at the kids.  
“Aaand that’s my cue,” Robbie muttered under his breath, moving to stand up to leave. Stephanie bit her lip, looking to the others. Trixie shot up to the front of the group, bouncing on the balls of her feet.  
“W-wait, Mr. Rotten - Robbie, please?” The pigtailed girl turned up the puppy-eyes, giving the villain enough pause for the rest of the gaggle of brats to approach. Sportacus discreetly watched for Robbie’s reaction, ready to try and diffuse the situation.  
“...Can we please play with Trouble?” came the out-of-sync chorus from all four kids. That, apparently, was not what Robbie had been expecting to hear. He stuck a finger in his ear and comically wriggled it around before leveling a look at the warily expectant faces.  
“I’m sorry, I think I misheard you lot. Did you just ask _me_ if you could _play_ with one of my dastardly creations?”  
The kids all shot unsure glances at each other and Sportacus before more or less nodding in unison. Trouble cocked its head to the other side, one ear up and the other limp. Robbie sighed at the dog, giving the mechanical beast a slightly fond look.  
“Alright, I’ll give you that this one is decidedly less dastardly now. Thanks for ruining my image, Trouble. I hope you’re pleased with yourself.”  
The robot let out a soft bark, swiveling slightly on its wheels as if unsure.  
“...Is that a yes?” Ziggy hopefully asked, a tentative smile twitching at the corners of the blonde’s mouth. Robbie suddenly under tossed his purple baseball to the kids, smirking as Trixie caught it.  
“Sure, why not? Knock yourselves out - Ack!” The villain visibly flinched as he suddenly had four brats hugging his legs and then just as suddenly the kids released him, called for the mutt, and started tossing the ball back and forth between them. Trouble barked happily, chasing the one with the ball each time it changed hands.

Robbie blinked himself back from the heart-dropping terror he’d just been inflicted with from way too much touching at once, his hand gripping his chest while he schooled his breathing. Sportacus’ beaming smile was the first thing he noticed once the panic settled a bit, and he offered the hero a sneer in return.  
“That was really nice of you, Robbie,” The blue elf murmured, sure no one but Robbie heard him over the giggling and barking in the background.  
“Don’t mention it,” The villain managed after a moment, once he was sure his voice wouldn’t crack.  
“Are you ok?” Sportacus asked gently with a raised brow. Robbie happened to glance down and notice the elf’s crystal glowing slightly, though the hero was covering it with his hand. The villain was suddenly acutely aware that Sportacus had purposely spared him the embarrassment of the kids noticing and had even stayed there to ensure the taller man was alright instead of flipping and flopping off to play. All because Robbie couldn’t handle a few hugs from some well meaning brats. He didn’t know what to feel. So, he snarked at the elf instead.  
“I will be, but not with you hovering like a mother hen. Go, shoo, corrupt my dumb dog with whatever dumb sports game the brats are going to play.”  
Sportacus at least took the jab for what it was; Robbie trying to save face. He leveled the villain a rueful smile and a knowing look.  
“If you need to disappear for a bit, I can bring Trouble back with me later.”  
“I - ” Robbie bit off the rest of his reply with a hiss and curled his trembling fingers into fists at his sides. Sportadork was being so damn patient it hurt. Finally the villain simply stiffly nodded once before stalking off back to his lair.

Sportacus watched Robbie go until his crystal dimmed. The hero let out a breath and silently congratulated himself for managing to keep from physically reaching out like he would have for one of the kids. Unexpected touching seemed to set the villain off worse.  
His inner thoughts were interrupted by a purple baseball whizzing past him. Trouble barked and zipped ahead of the kids as they laughed and gave chase. Sportacus grinned and backflipped after them.

The hatch slammed closed behind Robbie as he scrambled down the chute, collapsing into his big fluffy armchair with a shaky sound stuck in his throat. He silently berated himself even as he fought to control the persistent trembling in his hands.  
Damn him for rebuilding that damn dog. Damn the brats. And damn that flippity floppity blue kangaroo and his stupid hat and his stupid moustache and his stupid smile and his stupid patience and his stupid _kindness_ … 

“Shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Breaking this bit into 2 parts as it was already over 2700 words by this point... I won't leave you on the cliffhanger for too long! Promise!
> 
> Edit: it has been brought to my attention that the robo-pup already had a canon name. Whoops! I tried looking it up before i made one up... if its obnoxious enough to you guys, I will happily comb through and put the correct name in here...


	8. The Third Week Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robbie's most devious favor yet...

Robbie took his sweet time collecting himself. He had a few hours, afterall, before his nemesis came cartwheeling into his lair. No, Robbie shook his head tiredly, not nemesis. Not really. The blackmail had been an flimsy excuse at best, at its worst it was unintentionally exposing some very un-villainy feelings Robbie was not going to explore in any way, shape, or form. They just _were_ , and they were _not_ going away. The villain could admit that now, silently, to his own thoughts. 

If anyone tried to get him to say it out loud, though, he would vehemently deny everything.

His listless gaze fell on the half-finished sewing project and the pile of various fabric scraps he’d dragged out. Oh, right. He had planned to actually work towards his goal of making Lazytown lazy again today before Trouble and… everything. The chocolate was probably set by now, too. And he needed something to put it all in. Robbie slowly levered himself up with a grunt. Working on his plot would be a welcome distraction from the bombarding thoughts and feelings bouncing around tirelessly in his head. Plus, he had a reputation to uphold and a favor to cash in. Maybe some coffee would perk him up.

Robbie dragged a treasure chest over to his kitchen counter, dropping the heavy container with a resounding thud. He kicked the lid open and tsked at the slightly dirty wooden interior. He rifled around his cabinets for inspiration before settling on some purple tissue paper. It would do.  
He snatched up a now cold mug of coffee once he finished lining the chest, taking a swig of his third helping of overly sweetened caffeine with a grimace.  
“Ugh, whatever,” he complained to no one, finishing the mildly unpleasant drink in a few swallows for the caffeine alone. Carelessly tossing the mug into the sink, the villain turned his attention to his chocolate moulds. Robbie laid out a cookie sheet and started popping the slim discs out of the silicone.  
“Ha, came out perfect!” Robbie congratulated himself, picking up one of the discs to examine the ‘embossed’ front of the chocolate pirate doubloon. The buck-toothed skull-and-crossbones were silly and cartoony, but it was all about presentation to a bunch of brats that were going to hopefully devour them without a thought. He finished removing the coins from his moulds and dragged over a stack of pre-cut pieces of gold foil.

Sportacus chuckled as the kids collapsed onto the cool grass, panting and tiredly giggling. Trouble was finally losing steam as well as it rolled to a stop and slowly dropped the purple baseball at Sportacus’ feet.  
“I think you all managed to run a robot ragged,” The hero teased, earning a chorus of tired groans and one pointed childish glare.  
“But not you,” Trixie huffed, sounding mildly offended. Sportacus shrugged before cupping his hands to his mouth and calling up to his ship.  
“Water!” Dutifully, 5 bottles of water rained down from his airship and he caught them all in a juggle before passing them out to the grateful kids.  
“Hey, where did Robbie go?” Ziggy suddenly noticed the tall pinstriped man was nowhere to be seen. The other kids looked around at that, confused. Sportacus pretended to be just as confused, glancing around comically.  
“Huh, I don’t know. Maybe he got tired from watching all of you.”  
“That sounds pretty Robbie-like,” Stingy snorted, sipping his water. Trouble perked at hearing its master’s name said several times, but was obviously running low on power from all the chasing and zipping about.  
“I kinda wish he would have joined us, though,” Stephanie lamented, tucking her legs underneath her as she sat up.  
“Maybe we can work up to that. Small steps,” The hero smiled gently. The kids all looked a bit confused again before Trixie snapped her fingers.  
“Robbie _was_ playing with us! He let us borrow Trouble! He wasn’t in a disguise or nothin’!” The pigtailed girl grinned. The other kids’ eyes widened as they realized the same thing.  
“See? Small steps,” Sportacus reiterated, “Who knows, maybe I’ll yet get him to willingly eat some sports candy.”  
“As if!” Trixie giggled and Sportacus couldn’t help but join in.  
“Maybe not,” He managed after a moment, shrugging. Ziggy suddenly shot up, pounding a fist onto his open palm as a thought struck the boy.  
“We should give Robbie some encouragement! Like when Sportacus encourages us when we aren’t good at stuff!”  
Sportacus was about to gently curb that idea as he could immediately see a lot of flaws in the execution when Stephanie beat him to it.  
“Small steps, Ziggy,” the pink haired girl repeated, smiling at her excitable friend.  
“Yeah, I think being too encouraging would send Robbie running for the hills,” Stingy added, nodding solemnly.  
“Aw, then what _can_ we do?” Ziggy moaned, flopping back onto the grass. The other kids rolled their eyes at his theatrical lament. Stephanie glanced at Sportacus and slowly grinned. The hero blinked, suddenly very worried.  
“Well, whatever Sportacus is already doing seems to be working pretty well,” She started, keeping her tone nonchalant, “I mean, it's been like, three whole weeks and Robbie hasn’t tried to run him out of town. You’ve even been to his house!”  
“To be fair, a few of those times were not exactly because I wanted to,” Sportacus delicately added. Nevermind that none of the recent times have been strictly willingly either. Stephanie wasn’t phased.  
“Yeah, ok, some of them were for schemes. Buuut, none of us have ever been down there.”  
Sportacus almost countered her point, but snapped his mouth shut when he realized any retort would prove her point. Of course they hadn’t been down there, Robbie was a private man. He actively disliked loud and rambunctious kids. He actively disliked Sportacus too, as far as the elf could tell, so why was Robbie letting him into his lair? The villain could have easily told the hero to meet him at the park, or behind town hall, or the library or… literally _anywhere_ but the man’s bunker home.  
“Yeah, but Sportacus is an adult, Pinky,” Trixie cut in, breaking the hero out of his runaway thoughts, “You heard them, they were talking like adults do.”  
The pigtailed girl suddenly slapped her hands over her mouth. Stingy and Stephanie went wide-eyed before they both looked embarrassed. Ziggy shot the other three confused glances. Sportacus crossed his arms over his chest.  
“So you were spying,” The hero admonished, sounding more exasperated than truly annoyed. He was mostly worried about the kids overhearing certain parts of their conversation. Stephanie bit her lip, looking away. Stingy huffed, crossing his own arms defiantly.  
“We saw Robbie and Trouble before you showed up. We thought he was getting ready to do one of his plots so we hid behind the park wall…”  
“We only heard a little. We left to go get Ziggy when you started playing with Trouble,” Stephanie added, looking contrite. Sportacus sighed. Well, at least they hadn’t heard about his little problem.  
“Well, I suppose I can’t get too cross. Robbie spies on everyone all the time.”

Robbie finished wrapping the last chocolate coin with a flourish. Dropping it into the chest with the others, he noted that there were definitely plenty to go around if all five of the brats showed up. However, something was missing…  
“Aha! I’ll just… yes, this!” The villain popped over to another drawer, wrenching it open to pull out a bit of paper and a pen. He jotted a quick note with a smirk and padded over to climb up and attach it to his hatch. That done, Robbie dusted his hands of imaginary dirt and stalked over to his sewing machine. Might as well get this little project done; wouldn’t do to have a half-baked plan and an underdressed accomplice. He was feeling much better with the thought of a plot on the way and half a pot of coffee down his gullet.

After some apologies and only a little teasing, Sportacus sent the kids to cool off and get some lunch. He easily picked up the mechanical mutt who by now was barely moving and started off for Robbie’s. He was tempted to do at least one backflip, but he resisted since he didn’t want to drop Trouble and possibly damage the poor thing.  
As the hero approached the billboard, he spotted the pirate ship just out of sight and was once again insanely curious about how the hell Robbie got those machines out of his lair. Villain trade secret, probably. But, the ship being out meant one thing; a scheme was afoot.  
Sportacus shook his head as he pulled himself up the ladder one handed, pausing as he almost missed the note tied to the hatch.  
‘ _Bring one of your gross sportscandy_ ’ was hastily scrawled on the paper and Sportacus’ brow raised with even more curiosity. What was the villain planning?  
“Apple,” He called hesitantly, catching the fruit as it fell from his airship. He tucked it into his vest since his hands would be full of Trouble once he ducked into the chute.

Rolling to his feet, Sportacus noted several things. Firstly, that the kitchen was a mess of pots, spatulas, and bowls and he could smell a cloying sweetness thick in the air. Secondly, there was a familiar treasure chest in the middle of the floor with an ostentatious gold lock on it. And third, the lanky villain was looking much better than when he’d fled the park earlier. Though, he was absently bouncing one leg rather alarmingly fast.  
“Only you would manage to out energy a robot, Sportacrazy,” Robbie sneered, straightening up from his cobbled sewing machine. The hero shrugged as best he could with Trouble in his arms.  
“Technically the kids did most of the work.”  
“Perfect. Now I can undo all of that exercise you tricked me into giving them,” The villain smirked, enjoying the brief downturn of the elf’s ridiculous moustache. The elf was just too easy to tease. Robbie stepped around his machine with a large, triangular piece of blue and white fabric with a wide, thin gold hoop attached to it in one hand, gesturing behind the blue-clad hero with the other.  
“Put the mutt down over there, Trouble can find the charger by itself,” he muttered. Sportacus turned around and set the mechanical dog down as instructed, curiously watching it as it whined softly and ducked behind one of the larger machines.  
“Did you bring what I asked for?” His free hand made grabby motions until Sportacus hesitantly produced the apple, snatching it with a villainous grin.  
“Now, put this on. Hoop on the left,” Robbie thrust the cloth and hoop in front of Sportacus’ face, enjoying the rampant confusion crossing those blue eyes. The hero took the item after a pause, puzzlement clear.  
“It’s a bandana, not rocket surgery,” Robbie sneered as he took the apple over to his kitchen counter, making sure Sportacus couldn’t see what the taller man was up to.  
“I got that, Robbie, but why am I putting it on?” The elf sounded so deliciously confused, Robbie almost didn’t want to explain himself just for spite. He let out a put upon sigh as he wrapped up the apple with careful folds of silver foil.  
“This is for my favor,” Robbie finally explained, tucking the apple into the chest beneath some of the coins before slipping it shut and locking the oversized lock with an equally silly sized key. Presentation. He turned back around to choke on his next quip. Sportacus adjusted his goggles on top of the striped bandana, the hoop hanging from the edge of the cloth to give the appearance of an earring.  
A fleeting thought hit Robbie that the hero looked kind of adorable. It was a hack disguise, but the villain hadn’t had a ton of time nor the measurements to really give it his all. The brats would barely be fooled.  
“Surely just putting this on isn’t the favor,” Sportacus muttered, feeling self conscious. He rarely wore anything except his hero’s garb. He felt like Robbie was having him on, until the taller man grinned and held up a finger.  
“You are going to help me pull a scheme. You don’t get to be the hero today, Sport, you’re going to be my first mate.”  
“...What?”  
Robbie internally groaned at the crestfallen look on the dumb elf’s face. He opted to ignore it as he turned toward his Disguise Machine with a flourish.  
“I did warn you the favors might be a little villainous,” the villain reminded as he stalked up to the controls, cracking his knuckles. He spared a glance over his shoulder to spy the hero’s visibly pained look, brows furrowed under the pirate ‘disguise’.  
“It’s this, or I reveal your dumb pointy ears to the entire town. Your pick.”  
Just because he wouldn’t actually do it didn’t mean he wasn’t going to use it to get Sportaloon to comply. He was a villain after all.  
Sportacus chewed on his lip as he tried to think of a third alternative while Robbie hit chords on the organ and announced to no one that it was Disguise Time. The hero was apparently lost in his thoughts long enough for a fully disguised Captain Rottenbeard to come sauntering back down, arms crossed loosely across his jacketed chest.  
“Well? What be yer decision, elfie?” Robbie was nothing if not committed to a bit once he was in character. Sportacus would find it endearing if he wasn’t currently at odds with being a part of the scheme. The elf finally let out a pained sigh and Robbie resisted every urge in his body not to whoop in victory as the shorter male nodded.  
“Grab tha’ chest, then, matey,” Captain Rottenbeard ordered, “We’ve got a treasure t’bury and brats t’trick.”

Sportacus, or Sporta-neer as Robbie had dubbed him, found that so far this wasn’t quite as bad as he had feared. For one, he was actually really impressed that Robbie had made a treasure map specifically for this little venture. They - well, mostly the hero - buried the ‘treasure’ exactly on the predetermined X; just behind the town hall where mostly nobody went.  
Second, the land ship was actually kind of fun to ride on. As was doing entirely unnecessary handstands on the railings. Robbie pointedly pretended not to be mildly impressed while he tried to focus on finding the brats with his telescope.  
“A-har! Brats ahoy,” the Captain muttered, finally spotting the gaggle of multicolored munchkins playing in their treehouse.  
“I’m not going to have to do the accent thing, am I?” Sporta-neer hadn’t even attempted it so far. Robbie shrugged. He could concede that part, this time.  
“You’d prob’bly make me ears bleed if ye tried,” Rottenbeard teased, smirking. He spun the wooden wheel with a flourish and guided the ship toward their quarry. Sportacus jumped down off the railing, reminding himself that he wasn’t a sports hero right now as he smoothed his bandana.  
“GYAAR! I spy with me pirate eye me ol’ stompin’ grounds of LAZYTOWN!” Captain Rottenbeard cried, loud enough to be heard by the kids just above them. He snickered quietly as yelps of surprise preceded the brats all scrambling to look out their window. Sportacus ducked his head down at first, but remembered he was literally only wearing the bandana and fake earring over his own hat and the kids would clearly figure it out.  
“Captain Rottenbeard’s back!” Trixie scowled, but her lip twitched as she fought down a smirk.  
“And… Sportacus?” Stephanie pointed, slightly confused but also a little intrigued. Stingy elbowed her and gestured vaguely toward the hero.  
“Nooo! Obviously it's another one of Rottenbeard’s piratey crew!”  
“Oh no! He’s come to loot my taffy horde!” Ziggy wailed. Pixel giggled behind his hands. Robbie shot the shocked Sportacus a triumphant smirk before he bowed with a flourish to the onlooking brats.  
“Tis I! And I’m back t’get what’s mine! I found an ol’ map in the bottom of me ship fer a treasure I buried in this very town! And I _might_ be willin’ t’part with a small portion if’n ye brats are up t’joinin’ me crew t’find it…”  
“Treasure?!” Four of the kids grinned and giggled, ducking back inside the treehouse to dig through a toy box they kept up there.  
“It’ll all be mine!” Stingy wrung his hands together before joining the others, “Hey! The yellow one is Mine!”  
Robbie leaned back against the mast of the ship, idly picking his nails as he waited. Sportacus just leveled an incredulous stare at the fake-bearded man.  
“You…” The elf started, but quickly shut his mouth. If he correctly pointed out that this scheme was, in fact, actually just playing with the kids, he feared Robbie would get upset and never do it again. He shook his head at the villain’s cocked brow.  
“Nevermind,” he covered not-so-smoothly. The trapdoor of the treehouse opened and out piled Stephanie with a pink bandana covering her head and a short black vest over her dress, Trixie with a red bandana and scarf combo, Pixel sporting a green felt eyepatch, Stingy of course wearing _his_ yellow bandana, and Ziggy with a bold red-and-white striped bandana and matching cape. Captain Rottenbeard pushed off the mast, sauntering to the bow of the ship to kick his foot up on the railing and lean on his raised knee.  
“Permission to board, Captain?” Pixel asked with a sharp salute. Robbie gave a short nod, gesturing to Sportacus.  
“First Mate Sporta-neer, would ye assist tha’ new crewmates in boardin’,” Rottenbeard ordered. The kids shared a little giggle at the pirated hero’s pretend name, not at all surprised it shared Robbie’s teasing nickname pattern. Sportacus dutifully reached over the side of the ship, hefting each of the giggling mini-pirates until all were aboard and playing with various parts of the ship and its fake rigging.  
“So where’s the map?” Trixie half-demanded, not so subtly trying to look in every box or storage compartment in sight.  
Robbie produced the comically large rolled up map with a flourish, flicking the end to unfurl as he laid it out on the deck. Sportacus hadn’t even seen the villain hide the map on his person. The kids crowded around to see the rough ink drawings of a supposedly early Lazytown, complete with fake notes about treasure in the margins and a big, bold red X. However, with none of the current buildings penned in, the children spent a few moments spinning the map this way and that trying to get a bearing on the location. Robbie smirked and stepped back, letting them try to figure it out on their own.  
“Maybe it’s over by the school?”  
“No, no, this is the school, I’m sure of it. It has to be between Pixel’s and Ziggy’s houses!”  
“Wait, isn’t this the apple tree? Then, over here must be Ms. Busybody’s house.”  
“If that’s Ms. Busybody’s, then this is Uncle’s house! Which means…”  
Sportacus leaned over the kneeling kids, watching them point and puzzle with a bit of pride at their problem-solving skills. He started to open his mouth, just to give a little hint, when a sharp kick to his heel stopped him mid-inhale to speak. The hero snapped around to look at Robbie who silently shook his head, grinned, and pressed a finger to his lips.  
“I’ve got it!” Pixel announced, fiddling with his watch gadget, “If my calculations are correct and we have the map in the correct orientation, that treasure… is near the Town Hall!”  
Robbie shot Sportacus a look that spoke volumes of ‘I told you so’ before he clapped his hands together to garner the kids’ attention.  
“If yer sure, lad?” The captain asked, eyeing the redhead with a serious look. Pixel nodded, beaming.  
“I am 95% positive!”  
“Then to Town Hall we sail!” Rottenbeard announced, taking the helm. He kept the ship in low gear as the kids bounced all over it, inwardly amused as Stephanie started up some nonsense song about pirates and buried treasure that the other four joined in. Sporta-neer did a few gymnastic tricks in time to her song despite being supposedly in disguise, but Robbie wasn’t going to call him on it. He even caught himself humming along to the made up chorus of Pinky’s little song after awhile.  
“There’s Town Hall!” Stingy interrupted, excitedly leaning over the rooster maidenhead on the bow.  
“I believe the term ye mean is A-hoy!” Rottenbeard corrected, bringing the ship to a stop. He gestured for Sportacus’ attention and pointed to one of the compartments. The hero popped open the lid and pulled out a couple of kid-sized shovels with a wry smile.  
“Well, if ye want treasure, best get diggin’!” the Captain ordered, keeping his look stern in the face of giggling kids grabbing up shovels and getting help down off the side of the ship. Robbie waited until all of the little terrors were busy hunting for spots to dig before disembarking himself to watch them go at it, leaning against the wooden hull with his arms crossed loosely over his jacket and ruffle. He chuckled as he watched the kids drag Sporta-neer with them, the elf seeming a little out of his element with non-sports playing.

Robbie knew that was exactly what he was doing. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. This scheme was a huge excuse, pure and simple. Yes, there was a mountain of chocolate at the end and potentially lazy brats full up on sweets. But, without an end goal of kicking the hero out of Lazytown forever and in fact, including him in the plot, really nailed home that this was just playing pretend.

But he was really, really good at it, damnit.

The disguised villain was dragged out of his self reflection by a pair of triumphant cries from Trixie and Stephanie. The other kids abandoned their spots and rushed over while Robbie took his sweet time sauntering to the spot where the chest had been buried. Sporta-neer was already helping the girls lift the wooden chest out of the dirt. Stingy quickly grabbed hold of the lock and tried to jiggle it, huffing.  
“Its locked!”  
“I can fix tha’, matey,” Rottenbeard produced the key with another overt flourish, presenting it to the girls.  
“I suppose the honor of openin’ it falls to ye, Pinky. Tricky.”  
The girls giggled and took the offered key without correcting the Captain, unlocking the chest together. Robbie resisted comically gagging at the two. Ziggy, Pixel, and Stingy crowded in to help lift the lid and all five children gasped at the contents.  
“Wow! Gold!”  
“Its mine!”  
“Not just any ol’ gold,” Rottenbeard groused, reaching over their heads to pluck a coin out. He unwrapped the foil to reveal the chocolate doubloon. He didn’t need to say anything further as the brats cheered and started taking a coin each, unwrapping them to enjoy the spoils. Stingy took three. Sportacus looked bemused as the kids munched on the revealed chocolate.  
“Wait, what’s this one? It’s… sportscandy shaped,” Stephanie lifted up the ‘silver’ apple, brows knit in confusion. Robbie smirked, glancing up at Sportacus as the elf looked on, surprise clear on his face.  
“That would be fer me First Mate. He’s not as fond of gold as I am, ye see,” He cooly explained, brushing off the gesture as no big deal. Sportacus accepted the apple from a beaming Stephanie and peeled the foil off, seemingly half expecting something apple-shaped but not fruit. Robbie rolled his eyes. The big dolt brought the damn thing with him earlier! Had he forgotten already?

Oh. 

That was a really nice smile spreading on the elf’s dumb face. Robbie pointedly looked away, stuffing half of his own doubloon in his mouth to keep from saying something incriminating. He was suddenly really glad this disguise had a thick, bushy moustache and beard as he felt an unwanted heat spreading across his cheeks. The captain concentrated on chewing and swallowing his treat and not on what that smile had stirred in his stupid annoying heart.

Abruptly, the villain felt a tug on his jacket and he swiveled around to an eyeful of pink as Stephanie turned her beaming little smile on him and beckoned him down to her level. Robbie hesitated, but reluctantly did so.  
“Thanks for coming back to play with us,” She whispered, winking conspiratorially. The Captain jerked back, coughing into his hand to cover his surprise. He knew that they knew this time, but for one of the brats to call him out was… weird. Especially without the fanfare of the reveal and getting chased off.  
“Yer-welcome-I-guess,” He quickly muttered, fake pirate accent dropping halfway through. Stephanie gave him another blinding smile before skipping off to join the rest of the brats unwrapping more of the chocolate coins.  
This was usually the part where his disguise fell apart. Or Sportacus showed up out of nowhere and foiled his plot. Instead, Robbie awkwardly stood there fidgeting and half-listening to the light-hearted squabbling.  
“Stingy! Quit taking so many!”  
“They’re mine!”  
“By my calculations, we’ll get full before we reach the bottom of this treasure.”  
“Neeerd.”  
Sportacus, ever the voice of reason, piped up. “Maybe you guys shouldn’t try to eat… all of this?”

Wait. This was perfect. Sportadork may not have intended it, but Robbie took the opening. The villain felt it was the only appropriate ending to a scheme, really.  
“Ack!” Rottenbeard clutched his chest, faking an exaggerated stumble, “Betrayed by me own First Mate! How could ye say such a blasphemous thing?!”  
The hero looked startled at first, but realization crossed his face when he caught Robbie’s subtle pleading glance. Thank god the elf wasn’t too dense. Sportacus struck his hero pose and deftly whipped the striped bandana off without disturbing his cap or goggles, earning gasps from the brats.  
“Because I’m not your First Mate, I’m Sportacus!”  
“Arr, the health-nut hero of Lazytown! I should’ve known,” Captain Rottenbeard hissed, taking a step back. The kids hid giggles behind their hands as Sportacus reached forward and pulled Robbie’s captain’s hat off, revealing his pompadour.  
“Robbie Rotten!” The brats dutifully chorused, though their giggles made it sound much less admonishing. It still helped, though. Something had just been… missing. And it had felt… wrong. Robbie shook his fist at the hero, grimacing.  
“Gah! I’ll make this town lazy again eventually, SportaKOOK!” The villain swore as he dashed off back to his lair. He’d worry about getting the ship back later. This was the way it needed to end. 

For Robbie’s peace of mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Robbie, full of feels.
> 
> Also, holy moly, this was over 4400 words. Agh. If you're still enjoying this, I will warn now that from this point on I have little to no story notes so Chapters may come a bit slower.


	9. The Third Week Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robbie finally confesses his true feelings...

Robbie Rotten clambered down into his lair with a clumsy thud, landing on his rump with a curse. He rolled his eyes at the injustice and slowly picked himself up, grunting with the effort. The villain ripped the fake pirate beard and moustache off with a wince, tossing them onto a free bit of counter before he flopped gracelessly into his fuzzy orange chair. He was still wearing most of his disguise, but couldn’t bring himself to care.  
Trouble slowly wheeled out from behind the Disguise Machine, offering up a soft whine in question. Robbie let out a snort and made the monumental effort to beckon the robot over, earning a happy - but quiet - bark and a mechanical mutt pressing up against his boot.  
“Ugh, I’ve cocked it all up, Trouble,” He muttered to the dog, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes with a groan. The robot responded with another soft whine.  
“I can’t keep this up. It was all a mistake,” Robbie continued, voice partially muffled behind his wrists. He let out a long, loud sigh before flopping his arms back down to his sides.  
“Pinky was right… I’m just a big ol’ softie.”

Back at Town Hall, once Robbie had ‘escaped’ out of earshot, the kids pounced on their sports hero.  
“Oh my gosh! Sportacus, you were a pirate and everything!” Stephanie bounced on her heels with the biggest smile. The other four chorused with similar comments and giddy smiles, some still speckled in melted chocolate. The blue-clad elf ducked his head slightly.  
“It wasn’t a very good disguise, though. Robbie’s was much better,” he scratched the back of his head nervously. Trixie rolled her eyes. Pixel shrugged.  
“Sportacus, have you ever played pretend? And I don’t mean when one of Robbie’s schemes tricked you. I mean like today,” the redhead asked.  
“I… don’t think I have, no,” The hero managed after a pause. Stingy snorted, pocketing more of the foil-wrapped doubloons as he pointed out;  
“It seems to me that pretend is Robbie’s favorite game like sports are to Sportacus.”  
“I think you’re right, Stingy,” Trixie giggled. Stephanie huddled her friends together and shared a knowing smile.  
“Small steps.”  
Sportacus chuckled along with the giggling kids. Their mirth was infectious. Still, the hero wondered why Robbie had the change of heart at the end. The villain had won, in a way, and had even pulled his weekly favor on Sportacus not being allowed to stop the plot. Maybe it was part of the game, now. Their dynamic too ingrained after so long at odds. Still technically at odds, the elf reminded himself.  
Well, that didn’t mean he had to buy into the schtick. Sportacus was going to keep trying to show the stubborn man friendship. And the hero was not above a teensy bit of bribery to go along with his repeated attempts to crack that cold and sarcastic shell.  
“Exactly right, Stephanie!” The hero agreed, “Now, how about we clean up?”

With some Stephanie-provided music via her pink stereo, the kids and Sportacus easily picked up the tools and filled in the holes they’d dug for their treasure hunt in a little over an hour. The hero hefted the chest once he’d evenly split the remaining chocolate coins, leaving a more reasonable amount for his intended little bribe.  
“I’m going to take this back to Robbie’s,” Sportacus announced as casually as he could manage. Most of the kids took him at his word, bidding him a cheerful good afternoon with handfuls of chocolate as they headed back toward the park. Trixie, however, waited for the other kids to walk away before crossing her arms and shuffling her feet.  
“H-hey, Sportacus?” She managed after a moment. The blue-clad hero knelt down to the pigtailed girl’s level. “What’s wrong, Trixie?”  
“Could you - I mean, I guess it would be cool if you passed along a message to Robbie.”  
“Sure! What do you want me to say?”  
“...that, um, it was cool. You know, to play. It was cool to play and not,” Trixie waved her hands vaguely, “stuff. That, we were all playing together and it was fun.”  
Sportacus offered the poor girl an encouraging smile. “Of course!”  
“Thanks, Sportacus,” she seemed to relax after getting the words out, meeting the hero’s eye with a smirk, “And maybe also tell him that if you’re gonna play pretend too, he’s gonna need to make you some better disguises.”  
“A-alright, I’ll tell him,” Sportacus hesitantly replied while he fought to school his expression. Trixie’s smirk widened before she hugged the elf.  
“Just teasing,” she murmured before bounding off the catch up with her friends. Sportacus snorted after she’d gone, shaking his head with a rueful smile. She reminded him a little of Robbie. Speaking of the town villain, the hero stood back up and readjusted the weight of the wooden chest before heading toward the old billboard. 

Sportacus tumbled out of the lair’s chute with a grace that really wasn’t fair, rolling to his feet with ease despite his burden. However, he was met with only the soft hiss of machinery and a light snoring. He quietly set the treasure chest on the metal flooring, careful not to disturb the frankly adorable scene he’d stumbled upon.  
A half-disguised Robbie was curled up on his side in his big orange chair, one long gangly leg tucked up underneath him. And he was asleep. Trouble was pressed up against the other still booted foot planted on the small square of rug, cocking its head at the hero. Sportacus inched closer and couldn’t help but smile at how different the villain looked in sleep. His face was relaxed and the almost permanent scowl faded away. Though, the elf could spot a slight tremor to the tall man’s form. Probably from the unrelenting chill throughout the metal bunker.  
Sportacus wordlessly popped back out of the lair and called to his ship, bringing back the requested white blanket. The hero gently tucked his villain in before giving Trouble a quick pat and leaving. He could try talking to Robbie later. 

Robbie was pleasantly warm. Which was a welcome change from the usually inescapable underground cold. He curled tighter into the warmth, nose twitching as he slowly recognised the faint scent of apples. Wait. Apples?  
“Gah!” He nearly launched himself out of his armchair with a startled cry, one hand gripping the offending blanket and the other white-knuckling the arm of the chair. He grimaced, realizing he’d fallen asleep in the pirate disguise and apparently Sportacus had caught him dozing if the color and smell of the foreign blanket was any indication. His mechanical mutt huffed softly, giving a whine as it looked up from the rug. The villain scoffed, rolling his eyes.  
“Are you laughing at me? You better not be - I can still turn you back into scrap, mutt.”  
Another whine escaped the dog and it cocked its head in the other direction. Robbie sighed, his annoyance escaping him with it. Sportadork had brought him a blanket. How heroic. He really couldn’t be that annoyed about it. He tossed the white covering over the back of his chair before stretching out from his curled position with a pained groan. Things popped that really shouldn’t at his age.  
“Ugh, how long was I out?” He grumbled, pushing himself up and glancing to his clock as he shuffled over to his Disguise Machine. It was almost dinnertime, so he’d been passed out for only a couple hours. Trouble swiveled to keep Robbie in range of its optics while the tall villain nearly collided with the treasure chest.  
“Ack! What - ! Oh, of course he brought this back,” Again, Robbie’s frustration fizzled out as quickly as it’d come. He curiously popped the lid open, eyes widening as he did some quick mental calculations, gave up, then realized Sportacus had definitely only brought back a small portion of the coin-shaped confections. His Captain’s hat and the blue and white bandana were also safely stowed inside.  
“So Mr. Hero still let the brats have… well, a lot of sweets,” Robbie smirked, wondering if he should count that as a win or a pity point from the elf for participation. He settled on win.  
“I hope I ruined the brats’ dinners and they only ate _half_ as many veggies!” the villain declared, propping his fists on his hips in a triumphant pose. Trouble snorted. Robbie shot a glare to the robot before huffing and snapping up the rest of his pirate facade.  
“I don’t need my captive audience giving me lip,” he groused, stalking up to his Disguise Machine, “If you live in his house, you’re a number one fan of villainy. No refunds, no exchanges.”  
Trouble whined.  
“Nope! Don’t wanna hear it, Fido!”  
Another whine, even more pathetic than the previous. Robbie staunchly ignored it, stripping off the elaborate costume to shove it all back inside its tube.  
“I know what I said when I got back! I was just tired, not thinking straight! I can keep this up all day, every day! I’m Villain Number One!”  
When Robbie glanced back at Trouble after his announcement, he swore the mechanical mutt was shaking its head at him. The lanky man deflated, shoving the last piece of clothing back into its tube a little rougher than was strictly necessary.  
“...ok, alright,” Robbie sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Just between you and me?”  
Trouble cocked its head. The villain couldn’t believe he was about to say this. Granted, it was to a robotic dog he created that couldn’t repeat this to anyone if it wanted to. While he was standing in his lair in his purple boxers. He took a deep breath.  
“I think I’ve skipped a step,” he started, whirling back around to do something with his hands while he tried to figure out how to word this… whatever it was. He pulled out his pajamas and robe and shrugged into them while he gathered his thoughts.  
“Somewhere, along the way… I skipped a crucial step. I’ll bet it's Sportaloon’s fault. Somehow. Probably. Not important. I think,” Robbie paused, worrying his lip, “I’ve gone from hating to… liking the dumb elf.”  
As soon as he said it out loud, the villain felt some of the weight he hadn’t noticed lift off his shoulders. He snorted, shaking his head at himself. “And not friends, mind you. No, no. Robbie Rotten had to go and jump straight to… to… _like_ like,” He muttered, not sure if he was clarifying for himself or Trouble.  
“I mean, really, I was trying to blackmail the idiot! I’m almost positive if he reaaally wanted to, he could have made me… I don’t know, not? Whatever. Not the point! I’m a - a big _jerk_ , and - and… he’s still so… so…” Robbie gestured vaguely, trying to summarize all the things the hero was. He threw up his arms in defeat after a moment. The villain gave the railing around his machine a rough kick, immediately regretting it as he hissed.  
Trouble offered another soft whine. Robbie liked to think it was one of sympathy. He waited for the pain to subside before he limped back down to collapse into his fuzzy armchair. Almost as an afterthought, he tugged Sportacus’ blanket back down and wrapped it around himself, glaring at nothing in particular.  
“It's just because its warm. It’s definitely not because it’s his, got it?”  
Trouble spun about in a slow circle before settling down pressed up against the man’s ankle again. It only offered a soft snort in response. Tomorrow, Robbie thought, I’ll deal with this tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... to his dog.
> 
> I'm sorry for the giant tease! I couldn't help it when his confession just came out like this as I was writing... I'm a horrible troll and I promise not to do it again. Maybe.
> 
> Also, damn you Sport for being so flubbing a-dork-able.
> 
> (Next Chapter is still gonna be Week 3. Buckle up for some funtimes.)


	10. The Third Week Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robbie goes to the library and Sportacus catches some feels.

New day, new scheme. Robbie knew what he needed to do. At least, that's what the villain kept adamantly telling himself as he pulled the lever on his Disguise Machine to bring up the costume he was after. Old Ms. Roberta Hustler, widower and on the cusp of 80 according to her fake identity. The wig was thick and itchy and the glasses always gave him a slight headache afterwhile, but nobody in town had ever suspected the pearl-clutching granny was Robbie Rotten (with the exception of maybe Sportacus because of that one sugar apple that one time…). It was his go to for doing anything around the little town, like running errands, without being bothered. More importantly, she had a valid library card that didn’t have a villainous amount of fines on it currently.

And Robbie had some research to do.

Ms. Hustler made her way to the Lazytown Library in her own time. She had all day, after all. And of course it was an awfully bright and shining morning so none of the brats - kids should be anywhere near here while Roberta did her research. Perfect.  
Shuffling inside the old brick building, Ms. Hustler dug around in her purse to produce her library card. She flashed it along with a kindly old lady smile at the desk and the young librarian perked up.  
“Oh! Ms. Hustler, good morning!”  
“Good morning, dearie,” Robbie crooned in his best old biddy voice. It was hell on the vocal cords, but it was convincing, “I was hoping to use one of those new fangled computers today.”  
“Of course, let me get you set up.”

Robbie stared down his nose at the cheerily backlit computer screen once the librarian had finished setting it up for Ms. Hustler to use and left for the desk. His last experience with one of these had been… not good. Granted, he wasn’t accidentally inside this one. He suppressed a shudder and took hold of the mouse. No use getting cold feet now, he needed to get this research to move his scheme forward. Besides, he was a genius. How hard could this be?

Turned out, once he’d figured out how to get onto the internet, not terrible. His typing skills were abysmal, but once he had the first useful keyphrase entered, all he had to do was navigate and click links. Easy peasy. He pulled out a small spiral notebook from Ms. Hustler’s purse and set to taking down notes as he read through page after page of information.

Sportacus cradled the kitten to his chest as he jumped down out of the big apple tree with a rueful smile. The silly little creature insisted on climbing things much too high for her. He set her down on a low park wall with a gentle pat, smiling.  
“You’re as bad as the kids sometimes,” He playfully scolded, getting a soft mew in response. Now that the rescue was over and his crystal wasn’t blaring anymore, the elf returned to his self-imposed obstacle course through the park while he waited for the kids to wake up. He backflipped onto a wall and used it as a springboard to land on the next, enjoying the muscle burn as his thoughts wandered. He still needed to pass along Trixie’s request, but he wasn’t sure the town villain would be up quite this early. The elf flushed slightly as he recalled catching Robbie sleeping the previous evening...  
The hero took a running leap into a series of cartwheels, making a lap around the whole park. His thoughts kept wandering almost in spite of Sportacus’ attempts to quell them with exercise. Did the villain sleep ok? Did he even eat dinner? Did Sportacus even want to know what horrid sweet concoction Robbie would consider dinner? Did he keep the blanket, or -  
“Hey Sportacus!”  
Oh, thank goodness. The hero banished the roving thoughts from his head as Ziggy’s voice carried across the park.  
“Good morning!” Sportacus greeted, springing into a backflip to land on his feet in front of the kids as they came through the gate with a soccer ball in hand.  
“Wanna play with us?” Pixel asked while Stephanie and Trixie carried the pink-haired girl’s stereo and set it up on a ledge nearby.  
“Sure!”  
Playing with the kids should keep his mind off a certain tall, lanky, and extremely lazy man. Hopefully.

Robbie propped Ms. Hustler’s glasses up and rubbed his eyes fitfully. There were a lot of results to sift through, but he was getting somewhere useful, finally. Seemed this little venture was going to prove fruitful afterall, no pun intended. His notebook was full of notations and keywords to further expand his search. A few names, some details. He also had some call numbers for a few physical copies of books he might peruse further.  
He just needed a reason for old Ms. Hustler to check out the particular titles. Robbie glanced back over his notes and spotted one of the notes he’d underlined earlier. Cracking his knuckles, he keyed this one into the search engine and hit enter.  
“Huh,” He murmured, blinking at the hundreds of results. Maybe this would work. It certainly meant the least amount of work for him, and laziness always won out.  
“Can I help you with anything else?” Robbie nearly lept out of his skin, whipping around to see the librarian had snuck up behind him. She gave a little gasp.  
“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry Ms. Hustler! I didn’t mean to scare you!”  
“O-oh, it's alright, dearie,” Ms. Hustler managed once she’d stopped feeling like her heart was going to escape through her throat, “My eyesight just isn’t what it used to be! Don’t get old, it's terrible.”  
The young woman hid a smile and a light giggle behind her hand before glancing at the search results on the screen. “Oh, that’s an interesting topic?”  
Shit. Robbie scrambled for a plausible reason for an 80-year old biddy to be looking stuff like this up.  
“Ah, oh, er - yes, well,” Ms. Hustler cleared her throat, gesturing vaguely, “Well, my grandson - he lives in Mayhemtown, you see - was telling me all about this… computer game he’s been playing. I… wanted to see what it was about, so I could… talk about it with him.”  
“Oh. My. Gosh. That’s _so_ sweet!” The librarian quietly gushed, clasping her hands with a sweet smile, “I wish my granny was like you! Your grandson is super lucky.”  
Ms. Hustler just nodded, adjusting her glasses carefully. The young woman then reached over and pointed at one of the results.  
“This one will probably help. All the rest of these are going to be walkthroughs or forums talking about the game mechanics.”  
“Oh, thank you, dearie. You’re such a sweet girl.”  
“Not a problem, Ms. Hustler. Just let me know if you need any help with anything else!”  
“N-no, I… should be good, thank you.”  
Finally, the librarian moved off and Robbie breathed a sigh of relief. He couldn’t believe that worked. And he didn’t have to rifle through the hundreds of results for what he was ultimately after. Forget the books, this was going to be perfect.  
He carefully copied down the information on a fresh page of his notebook before stowing everything back in Ms. Hustler’s purse. Now he just needed to get his hands on a physical copy. 

Safely back in his lair, Robbie snorted. Too easy. He breezed past a barking Trouble to his seldom used telephone, pulling out his notebook and flipping back to the needed page.  
“Need a minute, mutt,” He murmured. The robot obliged, cocking its head curiously with a whine. Robbie shot the dog a properly villainous smirk. It was slightly ruined by the old lady disguise.  
“Sportadoofus won’t even know what hit ‘em when I’m through,” He preened. As he dialed and waited impatiently for an answer, the villain cackled. He was a goddamn genius.

A scant few moments later, a thin package dropped into Robbie’s hands from his mail chute. He knelt down to show the stuffed brown envelope to a curious Trouble.  
“Gotta love same day delivery,” the villain smirked. The robot huffed in response, sniffing the package.  
“What do you think, great idea? Or _best_ idea,” Robbie spun the package around to rip it open at the seam. He dug his hand inside and pulled out a console game box. The villain made a show of flipping it around to let Trouble view the front cover art; a heroically posing green-clad elf.  
“Eh? Right? I really do think its my best idea. A plot for Sportaflop, gets the brats to be lazy indoors, and I barely had to lift a finger.”  
A stray thought reminded Robbie that he had just gotten up at the crack of 8am and spent several hours at the library expressly to research for this loosely termed scheme. He quickly and ruthlessly silenced that thought. In the pursuit of laziness, one had to make personal sacrifices.  
Trouble was leveling him with that all-too-knowing look again in its green optics. He waved a hand dismissively at the mechanical mutt. He got another huff and a whine.  
“Don’t even start. Let me have this. I can’t _do_ blatantly nice things, I’m a villain. I have a _reputation_ ,” He couldn’t believe he was nearly begging. The dog gave a soft bark and Robbie swore it rolled its eyes. He let out an annoyed sigh and straightened up, stuffing the game into Ms. Hustler’s purse.  
“This will totally work. He’s a hero. He’s an elf. It's a game so it’ll grab the brats’ attention,” Robbie started listing, counting off the merits of his plan on his fingers. Trouble barked and started wagging its tail as it carefully took the hem of Ms. Hustler’s dress in its maw and tugged. Robbie froze.  
“Nonono, no. That is a terrible idea. Honesty is the worst policy!”  
Bark. Whine. Trouble let go and zipped off. The villain thought the mutt was dropping the subject until the dastardly dog returned, purple baseball in its mouth. Robbie pinched the bridge of his nose with a pained sound.  
“I am not going up there and just handing over the game! That’s - what’s villainous about that? I would just be giving a - a… _gift_ ,” He said the last word akin to unwillingly naming a fruit, scrunched face and all. Wait, why was he arguing with own his creation? He could just leave and do it his way. Robbie was going to do just that when he made the mistake of looking Trouble in the optic as he stepped passed. The mutt cocked its head, one ear falling adorably limp and it let out the most pathetic whine. The villain would swear he heard an audible crack as his resolve shattered.  
“Ugh! Fine! We’ll do it _your_ way! Mostly...”

Robbie was most certainly not pouting as he and Trouble made their way toward the sound of the kids playing in the park to some soft pop tunes coming from Pinky’s stereo. He was back in his normal outfit. No disguise. No excuse. Just Robbie Rotten and the damnable mechanical menace rolling along beside the villain. He was tempted to turn tail and bolt, wondering if he could outrun Trouble before the robot noticed. He got a warning huff in response.  
“I wasn’t gonna - just thinking about it,” Robbie groused, crossing his arms over his chest. Trouble gently bumped his leg encouragingly. The villain sighed.  
He could see the brats now, playing some sport with a black and white ball. Sportaflip was doing an overly fancy kick trick while Pigtails tried to steal the ball with a grin. Robbie smirked as the hero somehow did a backflip with the ball pinned between his feet and air kicked it to Pinky. The pink haired girl stopped it with her knee before it dropped to the ground and she kicked it toward the goal. Stinky tried to dive for it, but it sailed over his head. He cringed as the whole lot of them cried out “GOAL!” and wriggled his finger in his ear to stop the ringing.  
“Oh, hey Robbie!” Puddle - Pixel greeted, offering a wave as the redhead spotted the villain reluctantly approaching. Trouble butted against his leg again and he took the hint before the robotic terror took matters into its own… wheels. Robbie gave a vague wrist flick of a wave back. That seemed to suffice as the other kids and Sportacus took notice of the lurking villain.  
“Hey Robbie! Hey Trouble!” Trixie flailed, stopping short of running straight up to the pinstriped man. She bounced on her heels instead. The villain appreciated her obvious restraint. Sportacus offered an encouraging smile and Robbie almost made a face at the elf. Almost.  
“Tricky, you’re practically vibrating,” Robbie sneered. Trixie giggled in response, fiddling with one of her pigtails.  
“Well, it’s just - maybe I’m just excited to play with your dumb dog again?” She shot back, smirking. The dark-haired man snorted and shot Trouble a half-hearted glare and crossed arms.  
“This was the real plan, wasn’t it? Make me do all the work to get you out here so you could play, huh?”  
Trouble barked, wriggling its back wheels along with wagging its tail. The kids all giggled at Trouble’s antics and the villain’s eye roll. Sportacus hid a chuckle.

Suddenly, Robbie was struck with a masterful plan. Not quite as masterful as his original scheme, but Trouble had seen to that already. He could improvise.

“Alright, alright, fine. But!” Robbie’s eye glinted with a mischievous air as he held up a hand, pointer finger extended dramatically, “If we’re continuing this - whatever _this_ is, there’s going to be some rules!”  
The kids all looked a little confused, but slowly nodded and waited for the villain to continue. Sportacus’ expression was something crossed between bemused and befuddled.  
“I’m still Lazytown’s one and only villain, and I have a reputation to uphold! If I… _encourage_ Sportajock’s dumb outdoor physical activities, then I get to encourage something lazy in return. Fair’s fair,” Robbie finished with a smirk.  
Trouble snorted.  
He ignored the robot.  
The kids all turned to look at Sportacus, but the hero was fighting an amused smile complete with moustache twitching.  
“Sounds fair to me,” The elf shrugged, loosely folding his arms over his chest. Robbie blinked, faltering for a second.  
“Wait, what? The health fanatic is agreeing with me?”  
“Sure, if we did what I wanted to do all the time, it would get pretty tiring!” Sportacus conceded, smile cracking at Robbie’s lost look. Trixie took the opportunity to kneel down and clap, ushering Trouble to her for pets. The mechanical mutt gladly scooted over, barking happily while its master floundered. The rest of the kids crowded around to shower the purple-furred robot with attention.  
“I - Who are you, and what did you do with my nemesis?” Robbie finally muttered lamely, garnering a hearty chuckle out of the elf.  
“Robbie,” Sportacus finally managed, “If it gets you to come out of your house, why would I discourage it?”  
“Ugh, you twist everything to be healthy,” Robbie grumbled, unwilling to admit it was actually kind of nice to hear Sportakook agree with anything he said. While the hero had the villain distracted, the kids took off with Trouble and the soccer ball in tow, cackling as they started up a game of keep away with the dog. Robbie snorted as the dumb robot chased Stingy before veering toward Pixel as the ball switched hands.  
He sighed as he realized he lost this little battle and flopped down onto a nearby park bench. He startled when Sportacus dropped onto the bench next to the taller man. He was curious why the elf wasn’t flippity flopping off to join the kids.  
“The kids really do want to play with you. They told me so,” the hero murmured. The villain scoffed, waving a hand dismissively.  
“They like my disguises, sweets, and stuff, you mean.”  
“They wouldn’t have the ‘stuff’ if you didn’t make it, Robbie. Trouble is a fine example.”  
He hated to concede a point to the annoyingly handsome elf. So he didn’t, verbally. This scheme was not going to plan at all.  
“Whatever.”  
“So, what has the laziest citizen of Lazytown up before noon, today?” Sportacus easily changed the subject, resting his elbows on his knees.  
“Well I _was_ going to enact my best plot yet,” Robbie sneered, gesturing toward the gaggle of kids and robot, “But I had a little Trouble.”  
“I see. What was it going to be? Before the Trouble, that is,” Sportacus’ lips twitched as they fought another smile. Robbie very much hated the little flop his stomach did at the sight.  
“You’ll just have to find out, Sportanosey,” the villain smirked, “Once my inept partner in crime is done playing with the brats, I’ll reveal my secret weapon to encouraging laziness.”  
“Do I get to help?”  
Robbie’s brain fixated on that. Sportacus said ‘get to’ not ‘have to’. He coughed into his fist, awkwardly covering the pause.  
“Won’t be necessary. This is my most villainous and foolproof method. In fact, I could have probably not bothered coming out here and just left it in eyesight of the brats. Works every time.”  
“Sounds dastardly,” Sportacus lost the fight with his smile, winking at the villain next to him. Robbie sneered.  
“I’m sensing a hint of condescension.”  
“I would never,” The hero pressed the tips of his fingers to his chest as he graced Robbie with a positively scandalized look. The villain rolled his eyes and crossed his arms and legs in a huff. Sportacus snorted, a bright smile breaking his act. The hero hopped up with an unnecessary bounce and whirled to face the perturbed pinstriped villain. He struck his hero pose.  
“Well! I’m going to go enjoy running and jumping and flippity flopping. You’re welcome to join us, if you want to.”  
“Sounds gross. I’ll stay right here, thanks.”  
“Suit yourself,” The elf shrugged before cartwheeling off to join the kids. Robbie grumbled under his breath, catching the impromptu game from the corner of his eye. He felt tired just _watching_ his robot give Sportacus a run for his money when the dog snatched the soccer ball and took off with a skid and a bark. The villain snorted and shook his head, shifting to get extra comfortable to wait out the game.

He would not admit that this was nice. He would not admit that the warm, waning-summer day was really pleasant. He would not admit that watching the brats play with one of his creations was secretly very rewarding. He definitely would never admit to watching Sportacus flip and flop with a bit more interest than was strictly necessary. Nope, Robbie Rotten was not going to admit to any of those things.

The villain was startled out of his traitorous thoughts as five panting kids flopped onto the grass near his appropriated bench. Trouble rolled up soon after with an air of victory to its tail wag. Sportacus barely looked winded as he propped his fists on his hips and chuckled.  
“How are you still standing?” Trixie whined, slightly muffled as she refused to move her face from being planted in the grass. Stingy, Stephanie, and Pixel made agreeing protests. Ziggy breathlessly giggled and rolled onto his back, reaching up to pat Trouble as the dog wheeled past. Stephanie held up her hand in defeat.  
“I’ll take that break now,” the pink-haired girl wheezed. Robbie snickered.  
“Oh, now you _want_ to be lazy. I see how it is.”  
Sportacus simply shrugged before calling out to his ship and receiving 5 bottles of water, passing them out to the exhausted kids. They took them gratefully and guzzled the cold liquid.  
“I believe you claimed to have, and I quote, the ‘secret weapon to encouraging laziness’,” Sportacus prompted after a moment, offering Robbie a playful smile. The taller man sneered in return.  
“Claimed nothing. Tested and approved by your local villain.”  
“So what is it? Is it taffy?” Ziggy asked, excitedly.  
“Ooh, is it comic books?” Stingy interjected.  
“What about a board game?” Stephanie offered hopefully.  
The villain nonchalantly pulled the game box out of his pocket, waving it tantalizingly with a smirk.  
“Oh, just this old thing,” He cooly replied. He blinked as suddenly the supposedly utterly exhausted brats clambered up around the bench. Various muttered ‘oh my gosh’s and ‘holy crap’s escaped the awed youngsters. Robbie suppressed a grimace as he shoved the game into Pixel’s hands, trusting the techie to know best.  
“Yes yes, now shoo! Just watching you brats run and play made me tired,” The villain groused, shooing the kids away with both hands. They all grinned at each other and took off after Pixel, shouting over their shoulders.  
“Thanks, Robbie!”  
“This is gonna be SO COOL.”  
“I heard there’s a bunch of secret items!”  
“I wanna hit the chickens.”  
“Dummy, you’re not supposed to do that!”  
Robbie snorted and smirked as the kids disappeared into Pixel’s house, probably for the rest of the day. He stretched languidly, closed his eyes, and laced his fingers behind his head in triumph. Trouble snorted as it rolled to a stop under the bench, resting from its zipping about. Sportacus was still incredulously staring in the direction the kids had all unanimously gone off in.  
“...What was that?” The hero finally managed, blinking back to present. He gave Robbie a wide-eyed look. The villain sneered while cracking a single eye to see the elf’s expression.  
“That was a video game, Sportaflop.”  
The elf held up his hands in surrender, giving a slightly mocking bow to the seated man. “I concede victory to the mastermind of distraction.”  
“Of course you do,” Robbie preened, “Because I’m villain number one!”  
Trouble huffed from under the bench. The dark haired villain continued to ignore the robot’s pointed interjections. Sportacus raised a brow, but said nothing about the rather obvious silent exchanges going on the entire time between master and creation.  
“So how is the villain number one going to celebrate this victory?” The hero asked, honestly curious.  
“By taking a nap. I wasn’t lying when I said just watching you lot made me tired,” Robbie let out a wide yawn for effect, earning a chuckle from the sports elf.  
“I’ll see you around then, Robbie. Enjoy your victory nap!” Sportacus backflipped into a handstand to look the mechanical mutt in the optic - upside down, but it was the thought that counted, “And you keep being the best boy, Trouble!”  
The dog barked happily in response. Robbie made a pointed move to stretch out on the bench and cover his face with an arm, huffing loudly. Sportacus took the hint and cartwheeled away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Robbie, I don't know if this counts as a scheme. I think you need to check the definition, my dude.
> 
> Do I need to tag a fandom that's only referenced? I don't know the rules, man. Also, please let me know if I need to add tags... I feel like I'm missing some...


	11. The Fourth Week

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robbie's scheme has a few misunderstandings...

The rest of the week passed without any further active plotting from Lazytown’s villain. That didn’t mean he wasn’t keeping tabs on his long con, however. Sporta-lame was completely oblivious to the masterful scheme unfolding under his twitchy elf nose as the kids continued playing the video game at Pixel’s each afternoon right after lunch.

Finally, conveniently on the first day of the following week, Robbie spied the brats out playing without a single piece of sports equipment or Sportacus in sight. The villain leaned into his periscope and cranked up the volume on his speakers, eager to see if his plot had worked. He vaguely wondered where the flippity floppity hero was; it was nearly lunchtime already and he hadn’t seen or heard any heroics all morning.  
Stingy was wearing his favorite crown and gaudy red cape while sitting regally in a makeshift throne complete with a short red ‘royal’ carpet under the chair legs. Ziggy stood before the throne holding a plastic sword at his waist and a short, thin plane of wood held like a shield. The blonde boy also had a green beanie on with his candy-themed goggles over top. Stephanie, Pixel, and Trixie were some ways away, but still well in earshot. The pink-haired girl wore her puffy pink princess dress and was ‘trapped’ inside the treehouse. Trixie and Pixel had scary masks with pointy teeth on along with folded paper taped to their fingers to make claws while they patrolled the ladder.  
“Oh, no! The princess has been taken by Ganon’s minions! Link, please save her!” Stingy cried, pretending to read from an imaginary scroll. Ziggy saluted smartly.  
“I’ll do that!”  
“Ziggy, Link doesn’t talk!” Monster-Trixie hissed from across the park.  
“Oh, right! Uh… uh huh!” Ziggy corrected while nodding sharply, earning a groan from the pigtailed girl. Stephanie hid a giggle behind her gloved hand. Pixel patted Trixie’s shoulder with an amused grin. 

Robbie gleefully rubbed his hands together, smirking. Perfect. He was rudely interrupted as Trouble barked in alarm. The villain pulled himself away from his periscope with a put upon sigh.  
“What, mutt?” His annoyance, however, was cut short as he heard his hatch opening. Scrambling, Robbie slapped the periscope up, wincing as he pinched his finger in the mechanism. No time for that, he silently hissed as he cranked the speakers back down to a low mumble just as Sportacus rolled out of the chute and leapt to his feet.  
“You’re early!” Robbie snapped, trying to cover his startled state. The blue elf at least looked a little contrite, rubbing the back of his head with an apologetic smile.  
“Sorry, Robbie, I saw your periscope from my ship and figured you were awake already. I didn’t mean to scare you.”  
“What? Scare? Pft! I wasn’t scared,” Robbie groused, defiantly crossing his arms and huffing, “What’re you here for, anyway? The brats are out and about.”  
“It’s Monday,” Sportacus supplied, looking amused. Oh. Right. Robbie had completely forgotten about _that_. Well. His plot was coming together nicely, might as well go ahead and let the dumb goodie-two-shoes off the hook. He covered his mouth with his fist and cleared his throat before waving his other hand dismissively.  
“I don’t need any more favors,” the villain tried to sound as nonchalant as possible. He didn’t get quite the reaction he’d expected, however. Sportadork’s wide-eyed and _hurt_ expression got a double-take from the taller man. His brain screeched to a halt. What? Why was the idiot hero upset?  
“I - I thought… we were… did - did I do something wrong?” the quiet, hurt tone coming out of the elf was throwing Robbie for a loop.  
“What? Why in the world do you think you’ve done something wrong, you dolt?” the villain spat, brow raised as he tried to mentally backpedal. Sportacus nervously shifted his weight from foot to foot, chewing on his lip as he studied the floor.  
“...Then why are you… kicking me out of town?”  
_What?!_ Robbie’s brain scrambled for an answer when everything suddenly clicked. The villain choked on his breath and flailed, finally getting Sportacus’ attention once his coughing fit passed.  
“Not like _that!_ Sweet merciful cogs, don’t give me a _heart attack_ like that! Kicking you out of town, what looney bin did you roll out of this morning? Jeez!”  
Sportacus scrunched his nose and furrowed his brows in confusion, but at least he stopped looking like someone murdered a pet right in front of him. Robbie took a sharp breath and continued before he lost any resolve, avoiding the hero’s gaze.  
“Why would I kick you out of town when I just spent the better part my precious scheming time and effort to assure that you _don’t ever have to leave?_ ” Robbie really didn’t want to see the look on Sport’s face once he managed to force that out, gesturing grandly to the other side of the room during his confession. He abruptly felt a tug on his shoulder as he was physically turned around and Sportacus was much too close giving the villain a searching look. Robbie could feel his cheeks heat up.  
“You’re - ”  
“You want me to spell it out?” Robbie hissed, interrupting the hero, “I’m fixing this the only way I know how. With evil and selfish intent. That game I gave the brats wasn’t just a ploy to get them to be lazy.”  
“Then… what?”  
“The hero in it. He’s an elf too. Obnoxiously long ears though,” Robbie mimed the ridiculous length of the ears with a snort, “Point is - Hurk!”  
Sportacus rudely interrupted the villain’s explanation with an engulfing hug. Robbie’s entire body stiffened and his hands awkwardly hovered in the air for a beat too long while the blue-clad personal space breaker buried his face in Robbie’s chest. The villain could feel his cheeks were unsalvageablely inflamed now. He tried to shoot Trouble a pleading glance but the robot had made itself scarce. Typical, leaving Robbie to deal with this alone.  
Sportacus finally released his just shy of bone-grinding hold, but he still kept the taller man from escaping completely. Robbie swallowed thickly as those painfully blue eyes looked up at him.  
“Robbie, I - I don’t know what to say,” The hero murmured, before realizing he was clinging to the other man. Sportacus immediately dropped his arms and took a step back, worried he’d strangled Robbie accidentally if his reddened face was anything to go by. The villain blinked, still processing the hug as he mechanically straightened his vest out of habit.  
“Don’t make a big deal of it,” Robbie finally managed, though his tone was a great deal softer than he intended, “The brats would be absolutely devastated if you thought you had to leave over something so stupid as having pointy ears. And do you know who would have to deal with that nonsense? Me! So really, this was self-preservation.”  
Sportacus couldn’t help the rueful smile splitting his face as Robbie made excuses. He abruptly cocked his head, however, realizing suddenly he just missed something.  
“Wait, how did you find a game where elves are heroes?”  
“Apparently in this day and age, elves aren’t quite as… child-snatchy as you used to be,” Robbie teased, remembering that tidbit from his research. When Sportacus reacted with the hoped slight flush to his own tanned cheeks, the villain continued.  
“Books, movies, games - really just about any medium I could think of to check has some do-gooder elf in it somewhere.”  
“Robbie, this… was really ni - ”  
“Sportadon’t,” The taller man interrupted with a warning tone, “If you finish that sentence, I swear, I will tell all the brats horrible, violent, scary stories and let you deal with the nightmares all night.”  
“...Ok, I won’t,” Sportacus couldn’t quite tell if Robbie was joking or not, but he didn’t really want to test that right now, “Can I at least thank you?”  
“...Fine. Thanks accepted. Now, if you’re done physically harassing me and interrupting my morning, I wasn’t done with my villainous gloating.”  
Sportacus ducked his head to hide a fond smile, sidling toward the lair’s exit as he was bidden.  
“I’m going. Will you come up later?”  
“...Maybe. Don’t expect it every day, though! I only have so much patience to deal with noisy brats and an equally noisy and flippity floppity elf,” Robbie groused, crossing his arms as he partially turned away from the hero.  
“Duly noted,” Sportacus murmured at the dark-haired man’s back before climbing up the chute.

Robbie took a few slow deep breaths as soon as he was sure the blue-clad menace was gone, trying to quell the insistent little butterflies taking over his insides. He could still smell the faint scent of apples and it was not helping with the flitter flutter.  
“...I was this close,” Robbie muttered, pinching his fingers together for emphasis before he rubbed his eyes with a huff. “I - I almost…”  
Trouble creeped out from behind a large machine, offering a questioning whine. The villain let his head thunk backward against the metal wall as he partially collapsed against it.

“...I almost kissed him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... but it turns out alright in the end.
> 
> Also, damnit Robbie, why can't you just use your WORDS you tsundere wreck...


	12. The Fourth Week Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sport shares his newfound freedom with the kids...

Sportacus was absolutely _delirious_ with excited energy. Robbie Rotten, self-proclaimed number one villain, had gone out of his way to ruin his own blackmail so the slightly-above-average hero could be _himself_ without panicking. Sportacus did an entire series of back flipping cartwheels all the way to the park, never losing his wide, beaming smile. Robbie really was his best friend, even if he was just really, really weird about showing it. But, Robbie was a weird human in general. Sportacus wouldn’t change him for anything, sugar addiction and all.  
The elf springboarded off the back of a bench and back flipped over the park’s low wall to land on his feet, striking his hero pose. The kids broke out of their play to greet him enthusiastically, waving plastic swords or paper clawed hands respectively.  
“Hey Sportacus!”  
“Hey kids! What are you up to today?”  
“I’m saving the princess Zelda from monsters!” Ziggy announced, striking a hero pose much like Sportacus’.  
“I’m the princess!” Stephanie waved from the treehouse helpfully. The two masked guards of the treehouse ladder tugged up their masks, revealing Trixie and Pixel.  
“And we’re the monsters! Rawr!” The pigtailed girl curled her hands to emphasize her paper claws. Pixel grinned and did the same. Stingy harrumphed and readjusted his crown.  
“And _I’m_ the king! All of the land of Hyrule is mine!” He announced from his lawn chair throne. The other kids all rolled their eyes and hid giggles. Sportacus smiled brightly.  
“Sounds dangerous!” He played along, sounding as concerned as he could while smiling. Ziggy quickly shook his head.  
“Nu-uh! Link - I mean me! I’m Link - he can do anything! He’s a hero, like you, Sportacus!”  
“Is he now? Can he do extraordinary stunts?” Sportacus dropped into a handstand, raising his brow questioningly as he easily lifted one arm and did a pushup on one hand.  
“Well, I can’t… but in the game he can!”  
“Oh! Is this the game Robbie gave to you guys?” The hero rolled back to his feet with a bounce, playing ignorant. All of them nodded enthusiastically.  
“Yeah! Its really cool!” The kids spent the next few minutes gushing to Sportacus all about how awesome this Link was from the game they’d been playing. The elf was actually impressed by all the problem-solving the game taught, though the swordplay and fighting was slightly concerning. But, he trusted Robbie to not have given the kids anything inappropriate. He was villainous, but not that villainous.  
“He does sound pretty cool,” Sportacus agreed, nodding once the children finished. He took a deep breath and nervously smiled.  
“Do you know what else we have in common?” The hero asked, reaching for his hat. Stephanie picked up on Sportacus’ nervousness and shook her head, the rest of the kids catching her reaction after a beat. Sportacus swallowed and pulled his headgear off like a band-aid, revealing dirty blonde curls and pointed ears.  
“Well, we’re both elves,” He tried to channel some of Robbie’s nonchalance. There was a beat of silence before the elf was abruptly dogpiled by an excited king, some monsters, and a candy-loving ‘hero’; quickly adding a princess once she climbed down from the treehouse.  
“Really?!”  
“Holy cow! Elves are REAL!”  
“Ohmygosh, Ohmy _gosh!”_  
“That is SO COOL!”  
“I KNEW it!” Trixie announced as the others clambered to see Sportacus’ ears. When everyone focused on her at her declaration, she quickly added, “Well, not specifically, but com’on! Nobody is THAT energetic!”  
There were a few murmured agreements, but Sportacus was just happy the reveal didn’t go poorly.

Robbie sneered as he pulled away from his periscope and stalked around his lair. Trouble followed once the lanky man made his way off of the Disguise Machine’s platform, whining softly in question. Robbie waved it off with a flick of his wrist.  
This was… good. He’d done something… good. He didn’t _feel_ good, but the villain strongly suspected the act itself wasn’t the direct cause. Still, something horribly nefarious was likely needed to balance out all this… nice and good nonsense. And to take his mind very much off how cute Sportakook was when he was smiling like that. Or how the sun made his dumb blonde hair look really nice when it wasn’t trapped under that blue hat. Or how Robbie really wished he’d kissed the dumb elf while he had the chance -  
“Stop! Just stop!” The villain snapped at himself, groaning and dragging a hand down his face in annoyance. Trouble barked softly, zipping around to stop in front of the pacing man, stalling his next step.  
“What?”  
The mechanical mutt jerked its snout in the direction of his periscope and Robbie registered the kids asking Sportacus questions as they echoed through his speakers. The villain scrambled back up to the platform, swiveling the controls around. Trouble knowingly shook its head.

“So is that why you can’t have sugar?” Ziggy asked, sitting on the ledge of one of the park’s low walls with a lollipop in hand. Sportacus nodded.  
“I stick to sportscandy most of the time because they’re my favorites, but I can have honey and cream if I want to,” He elaborated, perched on the same ledge with the rest of the gaggle of kids surrounding him. The hero had his hat and goggles back in place, which Robbie most definitely didn’t grumble about.  
“What about meat?” Stephanie asked, scrunching her nose curiously.  
“Yeah, we’ve _never_ seen you eat meat!” Trixie added, just as curious.  
“Well, back home we eat a lot of fish,” Sportacus shrugged.  
“Ew! Fish is weird!” Ziggy giggled even as he made disgusted face, “I like chicken nuggets.”  
The other kids all giggled and rolled their eyes at the youngest. Sportacus knowingly smiled.  
“Ziggy, fish is good for you!” Pixel argued.  
“But its all slimy!” Ziggy whined.  
“Not if it's cooked, dummy!” Trixie snorted, propping her hand on her hip. Stingy nodded in agreement.  
“Fish are all really different. Catfish tastes like chicken, but Mackerel tastes like you bit into the ocean,” Stephanie shuddered, remembering a past fiasco. Sportacus’ smile twitched into a devious little smirk.  
“You know, I could try to find some of the fish I ate before leaving home. Some Hákarl or Lutfisk to let you all try sometime,” He offered, smirk widening at the cautious interest from the kids.  
“What’re those?” Stingy warily asked.  
“Well, one is fermented shark that we bury in the ground for a long time and the other is dried, salted fish treated with something to make it like slimy meat jelly.”  
There was a collective cringe and a chorus of various ‘ew’s from all the kids, drowned out by the elf’s ringing laughter. Robbie was impressed. He didn’t think the hero had it in him to be such a little troll. The villain really was influencing the other. And he wasn’t sure how to feel about that.  
He pulled away from his periscope as the conversation shifted to exercise and sports; Robbie didn’t much care about those. He was laser-focused on something Sportacus had mentioned.  
“Surely I have some still laying about?” the lanky man grumbled, stalking over to his kitchen to wrench open various crooked and misshapen drawers. Trouble zipped around in a circle, barking excitedly. Robbie rolled his eyes.  
“One of these days, I’m going to build you your own blasted chute,” He muttered under his breath, still searching drawer after drawer. Trouble curiously cocked its head. Robbie slammed the last drawer shut with a frown.  
“Ugh… I’m going to need to go to the store, aren't I?”

The kids and Sportacus spent most of the rest of the day playing once the newness of his reveal wore off. They didn’t treat the hero any differently and Sportacus was grateful for it. He felt the weight of his worry and fear of discovery completely lift off his shoulders. The hero still had a small concern that the kids would think they couldn’t be as strong as he was as they grew up, but their continued enthusiasm curbed that worry for now.  
They broke for dinner and as the kids wandered home, Sportacus realized Robbie never came above ground. Maybe he was still annoyed with the hero for hugging him. Sportacus blushed slightly at the memory and suddenly worried he’d sent the man into another panic attack after he’d left. But, his crystal hadn’t gone off, so perhaps he was just annoyed. The hero chewed his lip as he jogged back to his airship, debating if he should go and belatedly apologize.  
Sportacus’ reverie was interrupted as the elf spotted old Ms. Hustler shuffling her way to the store. Odd, wasn’t it a bit late to be running errands? He shook his head, smiling at himself. Surely Robbie wasn’t the only adult in town that kept odd hours. The elf continued on his way, calling for the ladder and scurrying up in his ship for the night.

He’d wait for Robbie to make an appearance in his own time and then apologize.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...And trolls the hell out of them with Icelandic Elf shit. Seriously, pee sharks and lye fish meat jelly. *shudders*
> 
> Also, what is Robbie up to?


	13. The Fourth Week Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sport and Robbie continue to be real bad at dealing with feels…

Sportacus couldn’t move. He was down in Robbie’s lair trapped in some contraption that kept his arms stiffly over his head and he couldn’t look down to see what was holding his legs splayed.  
A solid warmth pressed up against the hero’s back and the strange but familiar scent of cake and machines wafted under Sportacus’ nose. Before he thought to speak, ask what was going on, a familiar delicate hand clad in fancy cuffs and a navy sleeve snaked up to gently grip the elf’s chin from behind. Calloused fingertips spread out against smooth skin before Robbie slowly stroked them down Sportacus’ throat. The hero swallowed reflexively. The villain’s fingers continued down, ghosting over a clavicle before meeting the resistance of clothing. Robbie’s other hand joined in and the villain dragged both hands down Sportacus’ vest, skating over his covered chest and stomach before pausing at the hero’s hips. Sportacus’ breath hitched. Suddenly he felt the ghost of hot breath against his ear and a warm chuckle, but still neither spoke.  
Sportacus abruptly jerked forward with a sharp, choked sound as one of Robbie’s hands slid around and cupped him between his trapped legs -

Sportacus shot awake with a gasp, cheeks aflame and blinking sleep away as he stared up at the stark white ceiling of his airship. 

Dream. It had been a dream.

The elf slowed his breathing and took a mental stock as he fully woke, glancing out the airship’s paneled windows. He was up earlier than usual, but at least it wasn’t the dead of night. The hero covered his face with his hands and groaned.  
He wasn’t unfamiliar with the concept of a wet dream. In fact, this definitely wasn’t even the worst one he’d ever had, but it was the first to focus on a specific person rather than vague feelings. And _hoo boy,_ did his subconscious have some things to say.  
Sportacus refused to acknowledge his tented sheets and scrambled out of bed to head straight for the ship’s shower cubicle; intent on taking the coldest shower he could manage to stand.

Sportacus felt a little more in control of himself as he finished getting dressed in his hero garb, grabbing a fresh carrot from his ship’s stores for breakfast. He did a hundred pushups and a hundred jumping jacks to kill the time (and to keep his mind from refocusing on why he was even up so early), believing no one would be up before sunrise.

As if to prove the elf wrong, a certain pinstriped villain stood hunched over his Instant Cake Machine 6000 in the same wee hours of the morning. His eyes sported the darkest of circles; even his eyelids had a dark bruising to them from Robbie rubbing them viciously over the past few hours. Bits of splattered flour stuck to the side of his head and in his hair as well as having a sticky fingerprint on his cheek. Trouble had long given up trying to get its master to go to bed and had settled down on the rug underneath the villain’s gaudy orange armchair, watching Robbie work.  
A happy little ding sent the tall man flailing, pulling open the contraption to remove its still steaming contents. He frowned, turning the cake left, then right.  
“Why is this so difficult!” Robbie hissed, glaring daggers at the innocent confection as it slopped wetly to one side. The villain growled and tossed the pan over his shoulder, sending the cake to join its five other fallen brethren in a splattered mess all over the metal floor. Trouble winced as metal hit metal before letting out a quiet whine.  
“Too much flour, too little honey. Too much honey, too little egg. Too much egg, too much honey, not enough baking soda,” Robbie grumbled, reaching up to grip his long-ruined pompadour with a thin grimace. He let his head fall back with a long sigh.  
Trouble tried again, whining softly. Robbie snapped up, shooting the mechanical mutt a look before gathering up the mess of ingredients on the counter. He dragged them all back over to the Cake Machine, starting from the beginning once again.  
“How can making cake _without_ sugar be this hard?!” Robbie snarled as he dumped flour, baking soda, a pinch of salt, oil, eggs, finely diced fruit, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, cloves, and a heaping cup of pure honey down the machine’s spout. He roughly hit a few buttons with a frown before smacking the side of the machine with a wince. It spluttered to life with a whizz, hiss, and ka-chunk. Robbie whirled around to cross his arms loosely over his flour-dusted vest as he leaned back against the counter to impatiently wait.  
“There are two things in this world I can do. Make cake and build machines. This should _not_ be an obstacle for Robbie Rotten!”

It was proving to be an obstacle. A big one. Robbie tossed the seventh failure over his shoulder to join the others, wincing at the clang and splat as it hit the floor. He stumbled over and collapsed bonelessly into his soft armchair with a tired, defeated groan.  
“I, Robbie Rotten, villain number one, concede defeat. I cannot bake a non-sugary cake, apparently.”  
Trouble offered a soft, helpful little whine. The villain sighed heavily. He really shouldn’t be this upset over not being able to do something, he reasoned. He hadn’t been able to get Sportaspaz to leave forever, for one. He hadn’t been able to get Lazytown to be the laziest town in the world, either. Robbie rubbed his eyes again for what had to be the 1000th time that night (morning?) before sinking back into his comfy chair. The villain grabbed hold of and tugged down the blanket he had yet to return to the dumb hero and wrapped it around himself, hoping he could force his brain to shut up for just 5 minutes. 

“98, 99, 100!” Sportacus grunted as he finished a set of crunches, flipping over without a pause to do another set of pushups. Halfway through, his flashing and pinging crystal interrupted his set.  
“Someone’s in trouble! Ladder!” The hero scrambled down to Lazytown, trying to not be grateful for the distraction and focusing on the direction he was being guided in.

The blue elf let out an amused, if exasperated, sigh as he spotted the town’s stray cat stuck up in the apple tree again. He shook his head with a soft snort. One day, that silly creature would learn to either stop climbing tall things or learn how to climb down herself.  
“I think you’re doing this on purpose,” Sportacus jokingly accused before he leapt up, grabbing the thick branch of the tree with a huff. The kitten mewed pitifully. The hero gently grabbed her by the scruff and let go of the limb, dropping to the ground in a crouch. He set the kitten down and gave her a comforting pat as she mewed again, rubbing against his hand.  
“What are you after every time you’re stuck up there, huh?” Sportacus asked, mostly to himself. The kitten offered a useless mew in response. The hero chuckled.  
“I suppose we’ll never know,” He shrugged, standing. He caught his gaze drifting toward the old billboard outside of town and quickly shook his head, banishing the ghost of his morning dream. _Nope._ Not right now. Sportacus adamantly turned away and started his impromptu obstacle course until the kids woke for the day, strongly believing the town villain would not appreciate the inappropriate thoughts swimming in the hero’s mind.

Stephanie liked to think she was pretty smart. She had been thinking about the past few weeks and slowly the dots were lining up in her mind. She tapped her pen against the sheet of scrap paper she had been scribbling on, nibbling her lip in deep thought as she reviewed her notes.  
_Point one,_ Sportacus had been going to Robbie’s house a lot lately, and Robbie had been coming to the park more often. Even though he claimed to dislike it.  
_Point two,_ Sportacus was doing all kinds of stuff for Robbie, and apparently the villain was doing stuff for Sportacus too, like fixing his hat.  
_Point three,_ Robbie was talking to Sportacus sort of normally. There weren’t any of his usual villain threats or anything. Just talking. Like her Uncle and Ms. Busybody do.  
_Point four,_ Robbie hadn’t done a real ‘get Sportacus out of town’ scheme in forever. She figured he thought they hadn’t noticed, but even Ziggy had pointed it out the other day.  
_Point five_ \- and Stephanie had an arrow pointing back to Point four here - Robbie included Sportacus in a plot, and even brought sportscandy so the hero could join in.  
_Point six,_ it was awfully coincidental for Robbie to give them a game with a hero who just happened to be an elf, and the same afternoon Sportacus found out, told them _he_ was an elf.  
She frowned slightly. Maybe she needed more data. A smirk replaced her frown as she dug around and grabbed a set of walkie-talkies, her pink-banded fedora, sunglasses, and her coat. Hopefully, Robbie came to the park today.

Stephanie ran to Stingy’s house, tossing one of the walkie talkies to the boy when she spotted him outside. He yelped and juggled it a moment before finally catching the item.  
“Agent Mine, we have a new mission,” She murmured conspiratorially as she tipped her hat down over her sunglasses. Stingy grinned.  
“I’ll be back in a flash, Agent Pink,” He nodded once, dashing into his house. Stephanie stifled a giggle and waited, keeping an eye on the streets. She spotted Sportacus out and about, doing his hero course through the park. Perfect. They just needed to get Ziggy and bring Trixie and Pixel up to speed.  
“Ready,” Stingy - Agent Mine - re-joined his coated compatriot in his own yellow-themed get up, “Let’s go get Agent Candy and then you can tell us what we’re after.”  
“I think we’ll need the whole crew for this one, Agent.”  
“That serious?”  
“I’m afraid so.”

A few minutes later, all five children were huddled together at Pixel’s house. Stephanie produced a manila folder that she laid out on the low table.  
“Agents, we have a mystery on our hands,” She kept her voice low, opening the folder to spill her note page and separate photos of an apple, the game box, Robbie, and Sportacus out on the table. Trixie snorted. Pixel shushed her. Ziggy picked up the picture of the game box.  
“Hey, this is the game Robbie gave us!” He grinned, nodding like he’d solved the whole thing. The other four rolled their eyes. Stingy patted the blonde boy’s shoulder gently.  
“Yes. These are the clues we’ve gathered so far,” Agent Mine explained, gesturing to the lot. Pixel picked up the notes and read through them before passing it to Trixie. She glanced over it and snorted again.  
“So, what? Sportacus and Robbie are friends now. What’s weird about that?” The pigtailed girl may have doubted, but she did still keep her voice down. Stephanie groaned softly.  
“Ok, maybe, but still! Hear me out. Less than five weeks ago, Robbie was doing normal town villain stuff. And now, he’s talking to Sportacus and giving us stuff and playing with us out of disguise!”  
“...Ok, you might have a point, Pinky,” Trixie reluctantly agreed, setting the note page back down on the table.  
“Not to mention the whole not being human thing,” Pixel added, “Sportacus seemed really nervous when he told us.”  
“Aaand he only told us now! He’s been in Lazytown for-ev-er! How come he waited till Robbie did something to tell us?” Ziggy half-whined. Stingy tapped his chin.  
“Maybe somewhere else in the world, they don’t like elves? Remember, he did tell us before that there are heroes like him all over,” he murmured. The other kids all slowly nodded, wondering.  
“So… Robbie knew somehow, and… set it up so Sportacus could tell us,” Trixie scrunched her nose and furrowed her brows, “But that’s not very Robbie-like. He could’ve made elves seem bad and stuff and then told us himself to make us not trust Sportacus.”  
The other kids all slowly looked at each other. Stephanie quickly pulled out her pen and jotted another note down on her paper.  
“...So that makes seven points,” She muttered as she tucked her pen away. Everyone leaned over the table, studying the ‘clues’ closely. They all sighed almost in unison.  
“I got nothin’.”  
“Same.”  
“This is haaard.”  
“You said it, Ziggy.”  
“So now you know why I brought everyone in on this mission,” Stephanie concluded, glancing at each of the other kids.  
“So, what now?” Trixie asked, brow raised. Stingy and Ziggy whipped out their sunglasses. Stephanie grinned.  
“We need more clues and a distraction. Pixel, you still have your nerve center setup, don’t you?”  
The redhead grinned back, spinning around to settle into his computer chair with his fingers already at the keyboard.  
“On it, Agent Pink!”

Trixie and Ziggy without his Agent Candy get up raced over to the park. They had their mission parameters and new-and-improved earbud walkie talkies Pixel had been tinkering with. They were set to the same frequency as the regular ones and Pixel had the master on his computer.  
“Hey Sportacus!” Ziggy howled, bursting through the park gate a second before Trixie. She shook her head and resisted rolling her eyes.  
“Hey Ziggy, Trixie! Where’s everyone else?” Sportacus paused mid handstand push up, brow raised in question. Ziggy froze. Trixie snorted, roughly patting Ziggy on the back to break him out of his panic.  
“Well, Pixel stayed up all night playing games, Stingy wanted to count _all_ the coins in his collection, and Stephanie’s helping the Mayor with some stuff.”

Pixel snorted as he patched in Distraction Team 1 to their own channel, rolling his eyes at the pigtailed girl’s excuses. Sportacus bought it though. With the hero taken care of, Pixel switched over to Recon Team 2.

Agent Pink and Agent Mine carefully approached the old billboard outside of town. They ducked down under the platform to where they could see the hatch to Robbie’s lair but they were out of immediate sight.  
“Team 2 to Base, we are in position, over,” Stephanie whispered into her walkie before holding it up to her ear. A beat of static then Pixel responded.  
_“Read you loud and clear, Agents. Any sign of Target 2?”_  
“Nothing,” Stingy muttered, belatedly adding, “uh, over.”  
_“Got’cha. Sit tight, agents, over and out.”_  
Stingy glanced to Stephanie and cocked his brow after a moment. “So, what if he doesn’t come out today?”  
“We’ll try again tomorrow,” the pink-haired girl answered easily. Agent Mine snorted.  
“Alright, how are we gonna pass the time, then?”  
Stephanie grinned and pulled a small bag out of one coat pocket and a couple of juice boxes from another. She passed the bag to her fellow agent. He opened it to find a set of jacks and two red rubber balls.  
“An Agent is always prepared,” She murmured, smugly. Stingy suppressed a laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and the kids are on the case.
> 
> I'm so sorry / not sorry for that wet dream surprise. I felt I should throw you lovelies a bone for sticking with me for over 30,000 words of fluff, UST, and minor angst. I promise, this is going somewhere soon.


	14. The Fourth Week Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stephanie ships it.

A whole hour passed while Agents Mine and Pink played several rounds of jacks underneath the old billboard outside of town. Empty juice boxes were stacked to the side as well as both of their spy coats. Sunglasses were perched on top of their fedoras. Stephanie let out a bored sigh. Stingy took the last jack.  
They were both about to call it for the day when a soft thunk had them both freezing, wide-eyed. The hatch creaked and they both scrambled to get a view from their hiding spot. Another louder creak rang out as the hinges whined and the whole thing opened with a whump. Robbie Rotten carefully climbed out and dumped a barking Trouble out of his arms to the ground.  
Stephanie and Stingy both did a double take at the state of the villain’s messy hair, flour-dusted clothes, and bruised eyes as Robbie squinted against the sunny day.  
“No, I’m not mad,” Robbie muttered, presumably to the robot, “You’re just so full of energy I can’t stand it right now.”  
Trouble whined.  
“Just, go find the brats or something,” He groused, shooing the dog with both hands. Trouble scented the air and barked happily, zipping directly over to their hiding spot. Stingy and Stephanie both yelped as they tumbled out from below the platform, giving Trouble a rueful look before slowly looking up at an annoyed villain.  
“H-hey, Robbie,” they both chimed softly, at least looking a bit chided. Robbie leveled them both with a raised brow, crossed arms, and a cocked hip.  
“And just what are you two doing all the way out here?” he sounded more exasperated than angry. The kids wondered if he hadn’t slept again.  
“W-well, we were - ”  
“Nevermind what we’re doing. What were you doing? You’re all messy, were you plotting something?” Stingy jumped up, grabbing his sunglasses to shove them back on his face. Stephanie winced, but stood up as well, dusting off her dress. Robbie looked less than impressed.  
“None of your business, Stinky.”  
“What Stingy meant was, are you ok? You look like a bulldozer ran you over,” The pink-haired girl tried for a little more tact with the sour villain. Robbie looked about ready to probably tell them to go away when Trouble gave a warning bark, interrupting the incoming tirade. The tall, lanky man visibly deflated and abruptly dropped to sit on the edge of his hatch with a sigh.  
“...No, Bubblegum, I’ve been better.”  
“What’s wrong?” Stingy picked up on the mood and reluctantly removed his sunglasses as he spoke. Robbie snorted, lips twisting into a sneer.  
“What isn’t wrong?” He countered, continuing without waiting for a response from either child, “I can’t villain properly anymore, and now I can’t even bake a freaking cake!” He threw up his hands in defeat. Stingy glanced at his partner in crime helplessly. Stephanie worried her lip as she thought.  
“Maybe I can help?” She offered tentatively. She knew how frustrated she could get when things weren’t going her way, she couldn’t imagine how bad it must be for Robbie to not be able to make his favorite thing. He must have picked up on her sincerity because instead of straight refusal like she was expecting, Robbie looked contemplative.  
“You know what? Sure. Can’t get any worse than what I’ve spent doing all night,” The villain stood, turning back around to face his hatch. He paused a second before glancing back at the two brats.  
“Give me, say, a minute before you climb down. It’s like a slide, but there’s no soft landing right now. And I doubt you can flippity flop your way to your feet,” The sneer was back, but Stephanie was touched by the concern. She nodded. Robbie huffed, muttering something under his breath about going insane before he disappeared. Stingy whistled softly, planting his hands on his hips.  
“Base, come in!” Stephanie whipped out her walkie.  
_“Go ahead, over,”_ Pixel responded.  
“Tell Team 1 we have contact and to keep Target 1 occupied! I'm gonna help Robbie bake a cake!”  
_“Wait, what?”_  
“I’ll explain in a second, Pixel, gotta go!” Stingy hissed, clicking his walkie off and stuffing it in his pocket. Stephanie followed suit and ducked under the billboard to grab their stuff. Trouble whined, catching Stingy’s attention.  
“Oh, the other guys are at the park! You can help distract Sportacus!” He beckoned the mechanical mutt as he took his coat from Stephanie. She rolled her eyes and giggled as the robot excitedly barked.  
“Good luck with tall, dark, and broody,” Stingy teased as he took off, the mechanical mutt at his heels.

Stephanie rolled her eyes again at her friend’s retreating back and climbed up the short ladder. She had a moment where she was looking straight down what indeed looked like a long, dark slide to the bottom of the world. She gulped, but immediately chastised herself. Robbie did this all the time. She let go of the ladder and held in a scream as she slipped and slid down a very, very long chute. The pink haired girl yelped as she was spat out into a lit, entirely metal room full of various odd and hissing machines that whizzed by her vision before she landed on something soft and white that oddly smelled like apples.  
“I’m utterly shocked I didn’t hear screaming the whole way down,” Robbie teased as he offered the girl a hand up. Stephanie took it and hopped off her landing pad, brushing her dress down absently.  
“It was really dark, but not that bad,” She shrugged. The villain snorted.  
“Welcome to my humble lair, don’t touch anything,” The villain gestured extravagantly to their surroundings. Stephanie slowly turned around to take in all the machines and the lack of windows. They really were in an underground bunker. The gaudy orange armchair, fuzzy rug and side table looked comically out of place, as did the oddly old style phone.  
“Seriously, _don’t touch_ anything. I am not equipped to deal with any injuries you give yourself down here, mentally or physically. So just don’t.”  
“I won’t, promise,” Stephanie adamantly retorted. Robbie seemed to accept that as he turned with a flourish toward his kitchen and Instant Cake Machine 6000.  
“Now, promise you won’t laugh or back up the chute you go.”  
“Pinky swear, Robbie. I just want to help,” Stephanie assured, following the villain.  
“I was trying to make… to make a sportscandy cake,” Robbie twitched as he said it out loud, gesturing to the various ingredients still out on the counter. At least he had cleaned the failures off the floor earlier, he thought to himself.  
“And no,” The lanky man quickly added, “it wasn’t for a scheme. Or a plot. Or… yeah. It was just a cake. With no sugar. For _reasons._ ”  
The pink haired girl mentally added this to a running tally of her notes. Robbie crossed his arms and hiked up his shoulders, preparing for ridicule.  
“Robbie,” Stephanie started, chewing her lip as she studied the pinstriped villain. He was being really defensive on top of all the other things she had noticed... The pink haired girl’s eyes widened as she suddenly felt the last piece of the puzzle click into place.  
“Do you… like Sportacus?” She blurted, unable to contain her conclusion.  
Robbie apparently wasn’t expecting that. He spluttered, glared, and snapped, “N-No! Why would I like that flippity floppity blue kangaroo menace?!”  
Stephanie leveled her patented ‘I believe exactly none of the things coming out of your mouth’ look on him, complete with hands on her hips. Robbie actually backed down under the stare and swallowed thickly. He blamed his lack of sleep for being intimidated by a preteen. She softened as the villain lost the glare and broke eye contact with her, shuffling his feet awkwardly.  
“You can tell me, Robbie. I’m not going to make fun of you,” She gently persuaded. The dark haired man hissed out a breath between clenched teeth.  
“I might have a very small, possibly miniscule crush on the dumb elf,” He managed to grumbled out, refusing to look at the brat. Stephanie smiled warmly.  
“Does it feel better to tell someone?” She asked kindly, ducking her head to the side to force Robbie to look at her. He jerked his gaze further away, but a tight smile played at his lips.  
“I already told the dumb mutt,” he argued, but before the little pink menace could speak the villain reluctantly added, “...but, maybe just the tiniest bit better.”  
“Then I’m glad I came down, even if I end up not being able to help you bake a cake.”

Trixie and Ziggy easily kept Sportacus’ attention by asking him to do all kinds of soccer tricks. Not only was the hero really good at them, but it was also really, really cool to watch him back flip and kick the ball without looking.  
After awhile, their earbuds buzzed to life with a mild static sound, followed by Pixel.  
_“How are you guys holding up, over?”_  
“He’s doing all the work,” Trixie murmured low. Ziggy giggled. Sportacus caught none of it as he kicked the soccer ball up onto his thigh, bouncing it there a few times.  
_“Well, update - Team 2 made contact and Agent Pink is… helping bake a cake.”_  
“What?” Trixie hissed, coughing to cover up and offering an apologetic smile to Sportacus when he shot her a concerned look. She pushed Ziggy forward and made a few rapid gestures before the boy caught on.  
“H-hey, Sportacus! You should show me the one where you make sportscandy appear!”  
“Of course I can, Ziggy! Just stand riiight under the apple tree and close your eyes,” the hero smiled indulgently, throwing the soccer ball up in the air and catching it while the candy loving blonde scurried over. Trixie used the distraction to sneak away for a moment.  
“Now, Pinkie is doing what?” She grumbled back to Pixel.  
_“Helping bake a cake is all I know. Stingy is headed your way to explain, over.”_  
“He better,” the pigtailed girl muttered, messing with one of her hair ties. She spotted Stingy running toward the park, laughing as he was being chased by… Trouble? Trixie darted out of the park’s gate and met them both by the low wall.  
“What happened?” She demanded. Stingy held up his hands in mock surrender. The robot skidded to a halt and whined, distracting the trouble-maker from her annoyance. She knelt down to give the needy mechanical mutt a pet with a smirk.  
“Oh, you’re too cute to be mad at, Trouble,” She cooed. Stingy giggled until she leveled a childish scowl at him.  
“We… uh, accidentally got caught by Robbie,” he tentatively muttered, scratching at the back of his head. Stingy then gave the abridged version of being discovered and Stephanie offering her help to the obviously distressed villain.  
“ So you blew your cover, but instead of being super mad at you guys, Pinky’s down in Robbie’s lair… helping him bake a cake. Not fair, by the way,” she grumbled, “I’ll bet it's super cool down there. Pinky better take pictures.”  
The two broke their huddle and returned to Sportacus and Ziggy with the purple-furred robot in tow.  
“You’ll never guess who I ran into on the way here,” Stingy fibbed, gesturing to the robot. Trouble whined and wagged its tail.  
“Oh! Hey Trouble! But where’s Robbie?” Sportacus actually sounded a bit disappointed and all three kids shared a look.  
“Didn’t see him, just the dog,” Stingy fibbed again. Trixie comically shrugged.  
“Maybe he was trying to sleep and shoved Trouble out to come see us?”  
Sportacus smiled fondly at that, nodding. “That does sound like something Robbie would do.”  
“Hey! Now we have enough to play a proper sports game!” Ziggy cried happily, distracting the hero once again.

“So! Let’s see what I can do to help, Mr. Rotten,” Stephanie lightly teased, standing up on her toes to see all the ingredients on the counter. She jumped slightly as a long purple apron suddenly dropped over her head, Robbie raising a brow when she snapped her gaze up.  
“I’m already done for, but you’re in your favorite outfit,” he gestured knowingly to the flour splotches all over his vest.  
“Its too big, though,” Stephanie started to protest, but the villain suddenly knelt down to fold the bottom of the apron up until it cleared her feet before tying the back laces firmly to keep the folded part from getting in her way.  
“There, no more excuses, brat,” He groused. Stephanie couldn’t help but smile again. He was such a weirdly grouchy but subtly nice person.  
“Ok, ok, I’ll wear your apron. Now, where’s the recipe?”  
“Recipe?” Robbie scoffed, gesturing to his machine with pride that looked a lot like a modified microwave, “I have an Instant Cake Machine 6000. It’s never failed me before. Well, until this exact moment.”  
Stephanie snorted, incredulous. “O...kay. First off, let’s recap that you’ve been up all night trying to make a cake your way, right?”  
“Yes, and?”  
“And how many cakes did you try to make?”  
“...Seven,” Robbie finally bit out, sighing, “Alright, alright, your point’s made. Pushy brat.”  
“Stubborn villain,” She snipped back, grinning. The dark haired man blinked.  
“When did you get so sassy?” He huffed, half-heartedly glaring at the short pink-haired girl. He gave up when she only smiled back in answer, rolling his eyes before he crossed his arms.  
“So, you think we need a recipe.”  
“Yup, and I know just who to ask,” She popped over to her coat and pulled out her walkie, flicking it on. Robbie cocked a brow, curious.  
“Base, do you read me?” Stephanie waited, hearing a lot of static. She worried they were too far underground for a moment before Pixel cut in.  
_“Go ahead Agent Pink, you sound almost out of range.”_  
“Well, probably because I’m underground,” She reasoned, cocking her hip as she spoke. She glanced back and caught Robbie stifling a snicker. She stuck her tongue out at him.  
_“Wait, underground?! Are you -in- Robbie’s house?! Aw man, I knew I should’ve sent the pen camera with you guys…”_  
“Ahem,” Stephanie cleared her throat, “He can hear you, over.”  
There was an awkward silence on the other end and Stephanie rolled her eyes. Robbie snorted before holding out his hand for the walkie. The pink haired girl hesitated a moment, but handed it over anyway, curiosity winning out.  
“Look, I’m really bad at this whole asking for help thing, so if you could just… help, that’d be great,” He muttered into the device, glancing at Stephanie who gave him a helpful double thumbs up. He rolled his eyes hard, snorting.  
_“O-ok, yeah, sure. What can we do?”_  
“I need the recipe for a… a pear and honey sugarless cake,” The villain nearly choked, but managed to finish speaking after another encouraging nod from the pink haired girl. God, he was getting help from the brats. What had his life come to?  
_“Ok, searching, give me a sec… Steph, you got a pen and paper?”_  
Robbie handed the walkie back to Stephanie after she pulled her notebook and a pen out, ready to write. He watched over her shoulder, curious what he had been doing wrong all night.  
“Ready when you are, Pixel.”

Pixel clicked off Agent Pink’s channel as soon as he was done relaying the requested recipe. The redhead leaned back in his chair and ruffled his own hair with a snort.  
“Never in ever would I believe anyone telling me that Robbie Rotten just asked for help,” he mumbled to himself. And making a sugarless cake? With sportscandy! This was sounding more like when he tried to find things Steph liked so he could... Pixel stopped. His eyes widened. He scrambled for his mic.  
“Base to Team 1, over!”  
There was a pause, likely from one of his friends escaping from the group to take his call. He tapped his fingers impatiently against his desk.  
_“Agent Mine here, go for it.”_  
“Guys, I think I figured it out,” Pixel excitedly grinned, “I think Robbie has a crush on Sportacus!”  
_“...W-what?”_ The confusion was evident even over the walkie talkies.  
“I just got done giving Steph a recipe for a sugarless cake at Robbie’s request! That’s what he’s been trying to make! Why would _Robbie_ of all people try to make something Sportacus could eat?”  
There was a beat of just static before he heard Trixie chime in.  
_“I think I’m in shock. Is this what shock feels like? Stingy, pinch me, I’m dreaming this, right?”_

Back down in the lair, Robbie frowned deeply at the recipe Pudd - Pixel had given and that Stephanie had dutifully jotted down in her neat handwriting. The pink haired girl waited patiently while lightly bouncing on the balls of her feet.  
“...So I skipped a few steps,” Robbie admitted finally, setting the paper down on the counter. Stephanie fought down a smirk.  
“Well, this time we’ll do it by the book - er, well, scratch paper.”  
“If you start singing, I will throw you out.”  
Stephanie giggled before innocently smiling up at the taller man. “What if I just hum?”  
“Ugh, please don’t.”  
“Ok, ok, I won’t,” She relented. He did say please, after all. The pink haired girl pointed at the first line of the recipe, ready to get down to business. “We need two bowls, a whisk and a spoon, to start.”  
“Yes, ma’am,” Robbie mock saluted, gathering the requested things. They worked in comfortable silence as Stephanie mixed the dry ingredients thoroughly and Robbie separated the eggs and whisked just the whites until ‘bubbly’ per the second step. He then dumped the oil, honey, and diced pears into the frothy mix, coating the fruit per the third step.  
“Ok, now it all goes together,” Stephanie started, before grabbing her bowl from the villain to stop Robbie from dumping the entire thing with a quick, “Not all at once!”  
He snorted, but didn’t argue with the little terror. He held up his hands in surrender. Stephanie sighed, laughing after a beat.  
“Sorry, we have to fold it in slowly,” She elaborated, tapping the recipe paper. Robbie grumbled, rolling his eyes, but he did tip the bowl slowly while Stephanie used the spoon to carefully ‘fold’ the wet and dry ingredients together.  
“So much more work for a sportscandy cake than a chocolate one,” he groused, tapping the bottom of the bowl to get the last of the flour/baking soda/spice mix to fall out. Stephanie giggled.  
“It's just different,” She argued, folding one last time before nodding once, “Ok, now it can go in a tin. Do you have a normal oven?”  
Robbie scoffed at having anything normal in his lair, but gestured at the Instant Cake Machine 6000’s left side before digging around in a cabinet for a clean cake tin. “There’s a dial on the side, twist it toward you 2 clicks.”  
Stephanie reached over the counter, spotting the aforementioned dial and smiling ruefully at the words above each tick mark. She clicked it from ‘LAZY’ to ‘MICRO’ and stopped on ‘BORING’. Robbie finally found the right sized tin and tossed it onto the counter.  
“You know it's going to take forever to bake in a boring normal oven,” He muttered, raising a brow. Stephanie shrugged, handing over the spoon as Robbie took the bowl with the cake batter since he was taller and less likely to spill the whole thing.  
“Sometimes things are worth waiting for.”  
“Pft, whatever,” He groused, swiping the edge of the bowl with a finger to keep it from dripping. He paused for a split second before he wiped the batter off on Stephanie’s nose with an evil smirk. She looked shocked before the pink haired girl recovered, lightly smacking Robbie’s arm. They both shared a deer-in-the-headlights look before they broke into giggles and a chuckle respectively.  
“You know, I don’t think I’ve done this much with other people without a disguise in ages,” Robbie murmured, chucking the tin into the machine and shutting the door, punching in the horribly long one-whole-hour cook time. Stephanie blinked.  
“What, like, ever?”  
“Not quite, just… a long time. Having Sportakook hanging around every week is killing my loner villain vibe.”  
“Maybe that’s not a bad thing,” She offered, brows raised hopefully. Robbie scoffed. Stephanie narrowed her eyes slightly in thought before gauging that the villain seemed to be in a better mood now.  
“Speaking of, why was Sportacus coming to your house every week? You obviously haven’t told him you _like_ like him, so there had to be another reason.”  
Robbie very obviously froze. The pink haired girl’s eyes narrowed further. The taller man refused to make eye contact with the child, instead turning away and messing with his untamed hair absently.  
“ _Alright,_ Alright! It _was_ a scheme. At first. I found out he was an actual, real elf and threatened to tell you lot so he’d have to leave forever, yadda yadda all that,” Robbie talked to the other side of his lair, gesticulating vaguely, “However… I… didn’t. I changed my mind.”  
“Because you like him.”  
“...Because I like him,” Robbie agreed, softly. The pink haired girl sighed.  
“And you haven’t told him.”  
“No, why would I? At best, he probably just thinks we’re friends now or some such nonsense,” He threw up his hands as he grumbled.  
Stephanie took a little pity on the villain and pulled out her walkie talkie.  
“Pixel,” She called. Robbie snapped around but his voice stalled as Stephanie raised a finger in a wait gesture.  
_“Here, I’m here. What’s up, over?”_  
“We’re switching gears on the op,” She grinned conspiratorially.  
Robbie blinked, slightly worried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Robbie, sweetie, you are along for the ride. The brats all know and there's no escaping your feels now. *cackles*


	15. Everything Works Out in the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stephanie is an adorable tiny mom and Robbie finds his spine.

“This is now Operation Help-Robbie-Find-Love,” Stephanie quipped, clicking off the talk button just as Robbie exploded.  
“ _What?!_ I don’t need to - ! Sportafluke doesn’t need to know _anything!_ And the rest of you brats don’t need to know about my - my _love life!”_  
“Lack of,” the pink haired girl muttered, quickly ducking away as the villain glared and hissed out an angry breath between clenched teeth.  
_“Oh my gosh, was I right? Does he have a crush on our resident hero?”_  
Robbie almost instantly deflated at that. Was he that obvious? He groaned and covered his face with both hands. Stephanie grinned in triumph.  
“Yes, yes he does.”  
_“I called it!”_ Pixel whooped on the other end. Robbie wished he could crawl into a hole and live there for the rest of his life. Really, he was halfway there. Just never go outside again. Ever.  
He didn’t notice the silence until he felt a gentle hand on his elbow and he slowly peeked open one eye between his fingers. Stephanie gave him an encouraging smile.  
“Hey, com’on Robbie, where’s that determined villain who stopped at nothing to get Sportacus? You’re just working with a different end goal now.”  
Robbie just stared at the child for a long moment. He finally dropped his hands and let out a long, suffering sigh. “You brats are not allowed to be this perceptive. It's not fair,” he definitely did not whine while shaking a finger at the pink haired girl.  
“Too bad, you’re stuck with us,” Stephanie giggled, rocking onto her toes. The pinstriped villain just pinched his nose with a pained look, wondering what in the world he’d just been unwillingly signed up for.  
“Now,” Stephanie glanced back at the not-just-a-microwave, “We’ve got just under 50 minutes before the cake’s done and you are a mess.”  
“I am _not_ leaving you alone to do _lord only knows what_ in my lair - ”  
“Robbie Rotten,” Stephanie interrupted, crossing her arms over her borrowed apron, “I won’t touch anything mechanical. Promise. But you aren’t gonna score any brownie points looking like warmed over death.”  
The villain groused and grumbled and absolutely did not pout, crossing his arms resolutely over his chest. He relented after a beat, however, because he could feel the stiffness of the dried flour even through the layers of clothing and he knew he looked ridiculous with his hair all a mess. Stephanie made a little encouraging shoo motion paired with a winning smile and Robbie just couldn’t stay annoyed with the little pink menace.  
Stephanie tried not to look triumphant as the man several years her senior finally rolled his eyes and stalked off to some back area of his lair to hopefully do as asked. Now that she was actually alone, the lair felt cold and just a bit creepy with all the soft hissing and featureless metal walls.  
To distract herself and feel productive, the pink haired girl dug around in the kitchen drawers until she found some clips and twist ties. She tidied up the ingredients and put away what needed to go into the fridge, rolling her eyes and smirking when she spotted the cup of vanilla pudding with fruit still uneaten. She left it alone for now, opting to get a rag and wet it from the sink to wipe up the spilled flour, egg, and other bits from the counter. She then gathered up all of the bowls and utensils to drop those in the sink, taking a finger and swiping up some of the leftover batter and tasting it on a whim.  
“Wow,” She murmured, looking down at the bowl. It was actually really good. Not as super sweet as regular cake, but it had its own thing going on. She stole another taste and grinned. Oh yeah, this was gonna be awesome. Speaking of the cake, Stephanie checked the time. 28 minutes left.  
“Plenty of time,” She nodded to herself, hunting down some soap and attacking the dishes.

At the 10 minute mark, Stephanie propped the last cleaned dish upside down to drain. All that done, she took off Robbie’s apron and draped it on the counter, unsure where to put it but not wanting to leave it on the floor. With a self satisfied smile, she swiped the pudding cup and a spoon. She figured Robbie wouldn’t miss it. The pink haired girl also pulled out her walkie and did a quick touch base with Pixel before the villain returned.

With less than 5 minutes on the cake, a less-harrowed looking Robbie in a clean set of his usual fare finally reappeared in the main chamber of his lair. He took stock with a sharp glance and actually looked mildly shocked nothing was on fire. Stephanie gave him a little wave from her seat on the floor, legs tucked up under her as she finished the pudding cup.  
“Helping yourself to my food, I see,” He sneered, rolling his eyes. The pink haired girl ate the last bite and grinned.  
“We both know you weren’t gonna eat this one,” She reasoned, licking the spoon clean. Robbie grimaced, realizing she had the fruit one Sporta-sneak had snuck into his grocery list. Didn’t mean he had to verbally acknowledge the little terror’s astute observation, however. He waved a hand dismissively as he stalked over to the Cake Machine / oven and poked at the glass.  
“Really? You’re as bad as Ziggy,” Stephanie laughed, pushing herself up and adjusting her dress.  
“Is that the one who likes candy? I’ll take it as a compliment,” Robbie mused, smirking. The pink haired girl rolled her eyes, exasperated.  
“You know our names, Robbie.”  
“Yes, but I’m a jerk and a villain, so ergo,” He gestured as he spoke, smirk widening as Stephanie sighed. She folded her arms on the edge of the counter and propped her head up on her crossed wrists.  
“So,” She started, glancing side-long at Robbie. The villain met her look with a raised brow.  
“So.”  
“I told everyone except Sportacus that we’re coming to the park. Do you want us to conveniently disappear as soon as you show up, or do you want us brats around for moral support?”  
Robbie was thrown by the question. Moral support. From the brats? He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he _had_ any moral support. For anything.  
“I… don’t know yet,” He finally answered, sounding as unsure as he felt despite the sneer on his face. They lapsed into a strangely comfortable silence until the machine dinged. Robbie’s hand shot out and he had the door open in a flash, looking at the steaming confection critically. Stephanie moved to the side as the villain snatched the pan out and slid it onto the counter with a practiced air. Robbie was still a bit hesitant after the previous seven failures and refused to say anything lest he jinx his good fortune.  
“Hey, I think we did it, Ronnie,” The pink haired girl grinned. Robbie slowly turned to look at her, incredulous. She continued to grin, completely owning that yes, she did just do that.  
“Where did you get all of this sass? The Mayor’s a push over and Sportadork barely knows what sarcasm even is,” He groused, annoyed that she got him at his own game. Stephanie just giggled before redirecting their attention to the cake.  
“It smells really good,” She complimented, standing on her toes to see inside the tin. The pinstriped villain reached up and rifled through a cabinet over the counter, pulling out a cake carrier with a sniff.  
“Moment of truth,” He muttered, tipping the cake out of the tin and onto the carrier. Stephanie wondered how he was able to do that. Wasn’t the tin hot? Regardless, the cake looked amazing. Robbie snorted.  
“Well, I suppose I should thank your nosey little tuckus.”  
“Consider it thanked,” She tipped her head in acceptance. Robbie rolled his eyes and snapped the carrier shut.  
“Let’s get this over with before I get cold feet and lock the hatch forever.”

Stephanie blinked against the sunlight as she pulled herself up and out of the chute, reaching back to take the cake from Robbie so the villain could maneuver himself out without accidentally dropping the precious cargo.  
“Ready?” She asked, tucking her coat and fedora under her arm after she handed the carrier back. Robbie sneered.  
“No, but I feel like I don’t have a choice in the matter.”  
“Robbie, I’m not marching you there. If you really don’t want to - ”  
“No, fine. I’ll do it. Just - neeegh,” He made a weird sound in his throat and gestured with one hand, looking pained again. Stephanie fought a smile and nodded sympathetically.  
“Robbie, breathe,” She murmured. He did as told. She motioned for the villain to continue until he stopped nearly panicking. He tentatively gave her a nod once he calmed down, heart still hammering in his chest but that was understandable - considering.  
“Ok?” She asked.  
“Peachy.”  
Stephanie gave him one more side-glance before pulling out her walkie talkie.

Trixie was so ready. Her nervous energy was spreading to her friends as they tried to concentrate on playing soccer against Sportacus. She just couldn’t help it. Robbie _liked_ Sportacus! This explained SO MUCH. She nearly lept out of her skin when her earbud crackled to life.  
_“Agent Pink is on the way and Base is going offline. I’m not missing this in person!”_ Pixel informed before the walkies went silent. Ziggy visibly held in a happy whoop and nearly got pegged in the head with the soccer ball when he turned and gave his friends a huge grin and a thumbs up. Stingy yelped and smacked it away just in time. Trouble barked and zipped between the two boys, snatching the soccer ball away in its maw. The mechanical mutt made a mad dash for the goal just as Pixel opened the park gate.  
“Yeah! Finally!” Stingy cheered as Sportacus dove for the robot, missed, and laughed as Trouble tossed the ball into the net with a triumphant air.  
“Goal!” Trixie and Ziggy cried, high-fiving. Pixel laughed as he joined the rest of the kids in a subtle huddle, whispering excitedly. Sportacus figured the boy had finally woken up from his late night gaming. Trouble barked excitedly as the hero reached over and scratched its ear with a smile.  
“Who’s a good boy? Did you score a goal for the kids? Yes, you did,” Sportacus cooed to the mutt, earning a happy little whine.  
“Hey guys! Hey Sportacus!” Stephanie called as she jogged up to the park, quickly ditching something behind the low wall before hopping over said wall to join the other kids in their huddle. Sportacus ruefully smiled. Something was up. Trixie and Ziggy had been acting distracted all morning and it seemed to get worse when Stingy joined in. Trouble appeared to be the only one acting normally.  
“Wonder what they’re up to,” The elf whispered to the dog. Trouble huffed back just as quietly. Its ears abruptly perked a second later, barking happily at something behind Sportacus. The hero snapped around and blinked.  
“Yes, thank you, Trouble, I’m sure that was entirely necessary,” Robbie snorted and rolled his eyes as he set a large plastic container on the wooden picnic table near the kids’ treehouse. Sportacus cocked an eyebrow, standing up from his crouch while Trouble barked and zipped over to its master.  
“What’s that?”  
“Lunch,” Robbie shrugged nonchalantly. The hero felt another rueful smile crack at that.  
“Really, cake for lunch?”  
“This one’s a little unique,” Robbie smirked, gracefully settling onto the long bench as he slid a plastic knife out from a slot on the carrier. He popped open the container and revealed a very different cake than Sportacus had ever seen the villain make. Curiosity abounded as the hero sidled over and tilted his head at the lack of icing, whipped cream, or any other overtly sugary extras on the admittedly delicious looking light brown baked good. There were little chopped bits of something off-white mixed in and Sportacus furrowed his brow.  
“Well, I’m stumped. What kind of cake is it?”  
“Why don’t you try a bite and find out?” Robbie sneered, flicking the knife around and offering it handle-first to the elf. Sportacus chuckled.  
“Robbie, you know I can’t eat sugar. But I appreciate the offer!” His smile faltered slightly when Robbie scowled at something behind the hero, but before he could turn around to see what it was, the villain let out an annoyed growl.  
“I’m apparently doing this wrong. Let me start over. Ahem,” Robbie offered the knife again and gestured to the cake while almost sounding like he was parroting, “Here, Sportadoof, try some of this sugarless cake I made.”  
Sportacus blinked. Sugar... _less? _Robbie, the Robbie Rotten, made a sugarless cake? He wordlessly dropped down onto the opposite bench and hesitantly reached for the offered knife. The villain didn’t yank it away or sneer or otherwise tease the elf for trusting him.__  
“It's not going to bite you, Sport,” Robbie snorted, rolling his eyes at the look on Sportacus’ face as he took the utensil. The villain tried not to look like he was watching while the hero took a small chunk. The elf sniffed it experimentally and looked shocked.  
“Is that… pear? And cinnamon?”  
“Would you just eat it? I’m gonna die of old age by the time you quit stalling,” Robbie groused. Sportacus barked out a laugh, releasing all the tension he’d built up while Robbie grumbled. He finally popped the bite into his mouth, chewing carefully. His face suddenly lit up and he snagged a second, larger bite, shocked but utterly pleased.  
“This is really good, Robbie!” He managed after a beat, trying not to talk with a mouthful of cake. Gods, it had been ages since Sportacus had a sweet, baked food that wasn’t regular bread. And this one was really, really good. Robbie preened from the other side of the wooden table.  
“Of course it’s good,” The villain waved a hand dismissively. The hero caught the faint flush on the other’s cheeks, though. Sportacus cut a third bite with a pleased smile.  
“Alright, brats, you can stop hiding,” Robbie suddenly called out, startling the hero as he realized it had gone quiet except for Trouble, Robbie, and himself.  
A sheepish gaggle of kids slunk up to the table and gave a tentative wave. The villain rolled his eyes and made a grand gesture to the table in general.  
“Well don’t just hover like the greedy little imps you are, sit!”  
Sportacus coughed to cover a laugh as the kids scrambled to do as invited/ordered, curious when Trixie and Stephanie flanked the bench on Robbie’s side of the table and the villain barely grumbled about it. The hero graciously sliced a few appropriately sized pieces out and passed them around, chuckling as they all had about the same reaction he did. He wasn’t surprised when Robbie slid his piece under the table and a certain robot took care of the evidence.  
“Holy COW this is good!” Trixie had no such qualms about talking with her mouth full. Robbie sneered and edged away from the pigtailed girl. Agreeing nods came from the rest of the kids who thankfully refrained from spraying their snack. Robbie looked extremely self-satisfied at all the praise. Stephanie shot him a knowing look and he snorted at her, turning up his nose before muttering.  
“...I _suppose_ I should mention Steph helped.”  
“Oh, I’m Steph now?” She asked, bemused.  
“Don’t push it, Bubblegum, I’m feeling gracious.”  
“Well, I think you both did a great job! This is awesome,” Sportacus chimed in, smile beaming. He hid the fact that he was infinitely curious about Robbie accepting help from one of the kids, much less acknowledging it. He was also realizing Trixie had lied about where Stephanie was earlier. This all smelled like a Rotten Scheme, but how in the world were all the kids in on it? Unless…  
Abruptly, all of the kids shot each other a look before they were bolting off with quickly shouted excuses, dragging Trouble along with them, leaving a very confused Sportacus alone with Robbie. The villain rolled his eyes before shifting to sit sideways on the bench, crossing his legs.  
“If they’re going to try to out-villain me, the least they could do is work on their exit strategy,” He muttered. The hero tilted his head like a confused puppy.  
“You mean… this was all the kids’ idea?”  
“Mmn - sort of. This,” Robbie gestured to the table, to Sportacus, “Was them. The cake, was me. Er, and Stephanie. I wouldn’t have gotten it right if she hadn’t been a nosey little brat snooping around my billboard with Stink - Stingy.”  
Sportacus didn’t think he’d ever heard the villain say any of their names right, ever. He also looked like something was really bothering him despite the sneer plastered on his face. The hero waited patiently, afraid if he interrupted Robbie might get up and leave.  
“Ugh, this is the hard part. Look, Sport, I seem to kinda… have a… thing,” Robbie gestured vaguely before letting out a huff, finally turning back to actually face the elf. He reluctantly met the hero’s blue eyes.  
“I… like you.”  
Sportacus encouragingly smiled. “Well, I happen to like you too. I mean, I’ve only been trying to be your friend since arriving.”  
“Yeah, no, that’s kind of the problem. I want to be more than friends,” Robbie blurted, sounding half-exasperated. The villain quickly jerked away, crossing his arms and looking anywhere but at the elf. Oh. _Oh._ Sportacus could hear the record scratch in his mind. Instead of saying anything, the hero tucked up over the table and dropped down on the bench next to Robbie. The villain shot him a look out of the corner of his eye, keeping his body turned away.  
“How long?” Sportacus tentatively asked.  
“Long enough,” the taller man snapped at first, before softening a bit to add, “I only just recently put two and two together, but… I think… I’ve felt this way for awhile.”  
The elf was quiet. Too quiet. Robbie shifted uncomfortably. This had been a mistake. He shouldn’t have listened to a pink haired prepubescent brat on matters of love.  
“B-but it’s fine! It’s fine. Nothing has to change. Being friends is fine. I can live with that, I think - ”  
“Robbie.”  
“ - I won’t make it weird, I can just - just - ”  
“Robbie!”  
“ - really it's fine, I - ” Robbie was rudely interrupted as Sportacus grabbed his upper arm, tugged him around, and soundly kissed him. The villain stilled. Anything else he was going to say died in his throat as his eyes slipped shut and he slowly started kissing back. Sportacus’ grip on his arm gradually relaxed. Distantly, the elf registered hearing a muffled gasp and stifled shushing, but he ignored it in favor of bringing his other hand up to cup Robbie’s jaw.  
They eventually broke the kiss and pulled away sightly, eyes half lidded as they stared at each other.  
“Um,” Robbie eloquently started, swallowing thickly.  
“Yeah,” Sportacus helpfully added, knowing he had the stupidest grin on his face.  
“So, you too, huh?” The villain nervously chuckled, grey eyes flicking across the hero’s face, searching for something. Sportacus nodded.  
“I didn’t want to make it weird,” The hero borrowed Robbie’s own term, earning a choked laugh from the dark haired man. Robbie recovered after a minute, letting out a snort before sighing heavily.  
“This was not how I thought this was going to go.”  
Sportacus gently squeezed the villain’s arm where he still had his hand resting. “Is that good or bad?”  
“Well, I figured I’d be running off and locking myself in my lair for the rest of my foreseeable future. So you tell me.”  
Sportacus couldn’t help the amused snort that escaped him. Robbie’s lips quirked as he fought down a smirk.  
“I think I like this better,” The hero murmured, leaning in to steal another kiss. 

____

__The villain didn’t stop him._ _

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> This is a finished piece. I'm happy with it and I'm pleased with the 'ending'. (And to be perfectly honest, this is the first fanfic I've ever actually FINISHED.) HOWEVER. This does not mean this is the end of this little venture. 
> 
> **EDIT** This is a series now. The next part is a compilation of all the sexytimes these two get up to after this heartfelt confession. I may or may not add more fluff/plot as separate parts to the series as I've always wanted to do an injury/sick fic and I've been reading a ton of the old Halloween fics... So keep an eye out for this series to grow!


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